The History Of Spiritualism Vol I

The

History of Spiritualism

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, M.D., LL.D.

President d'Honneur de la. Ftdtration Spirite Internationale,

President of th London Spiritualist Alliance, and President

of the British College of Psychic Science

With Eight Plates

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published 1926

Printed in Great Britain

So
SIR OLIVER LODGE, F.R.S,

A great leader both in physical and in psychic science

In token of respect
This work is dedicated

PREFACE.

THIS work has grown from small disconnected
chapters into a narrative which covers in a way
the whole history of the Spiritualistic movement.
This genesis needs some little explanation. I had
written certain studies with no particular ulterior
object save to gain myself, and to pass on to others,
a clear view of what seemed to me to be important
episodes in the modern spiritual development of the
human race. These included the chapters on Sweden-
borg, on Irving, on A. J. Davis, on the Hydesville
incident, on the history of the Fox sisters, on the
Eddys and on the life of D. D. Home. These were
all done before it was suggested to my mind that I
had already gone some distance in doing a fuller
history of the Spiritualistic movement than had
hitherto seen the light a history which would have
the advantage of being written from the inside and
with intimate personal knowledge of those factors
which are characteristic of this modern development.
It is indeed curious that this movement, which
many of us regard as the most important in the
history of the world since the Christ episode, has
never had a historian from those who were within it,
and who had large personal experience of its develop-
ment. Mr. Frank Podmore brought together a large
number of the facts, and, by ignoring those which

PREFACE

did not suit his purpose, endeavoured to suggest the
worthlessness of most of the rest, especially the
physical phenomena, which in his view were mainly
the result of fraud. There is a history of Spiritual-
ism by Mr. McCabe which turns everything to
fraud, and which is itself a misnomer, since the public
would buy a book with such a title under the impres-
sion that it was a serious record instead of a travesty.
There is also a history by J. Arthur Hill which is
written from a strictly psychic research point of
view, and is far behind the real provable facts. Then
we have " Modern American Spiritualism : A Twenty
Years' Record," and " Nineteenth Century Miracles,"
by that great woman and splendid propagandist, Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten, but these deal only with
phases, though they are exceedingly valuable. Finally
-and best of all there is " Man's Survival After
Death," by the Rev. Charles L. Tweedale ; but this
is rather a very fine connected exposition of the truth
of the cult than a deliberate consecutive history.
There are general histories of mysticism, like those
of Ennemoser and Howitt, but there is no clean-cut,
comprehensive story of the successive developments
of this world-wide movement. Just before going to
press a book has appeared by Campbell-Holms which
is a very useful compendium of psychic facts, as its
title, ."The Facts of Psychic Science and Philo-
sophy," implies, but here again it cannot claim to be
a connected history.

It was clear that such a work needed a great deal
of research far more than I in my crowded life

PREFACE

could devote to it. It is true that my time was in
any case dedicated to it, but the literature is vast,
and there were many aspects of the movement which
claimed my attention. Under these circumstances
I claimed and obtained the loyal assistance of
Mr. W. Leslie Curnow, whose knowledge of the subject
and whose industry have proved to be invaluable.
He has dug assiduously into that vast quarry ; he
has separated out the ore from the rubbish, and in
every way he has been of the greatest assistance. I
had originally expected no more than raw material,
but he has occasionally given me the finished article,
of which I have gladly availed myself, altering it
only to the extent of getting my own personal point
of view. I cannot admit too fully the loyal assistance
which he has given me, and if I have not conjoined
his name with my own upon the title-page it is for
reasons which he understands and in which he
acquiesces.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

The Psychic Bookshop,
Abbey House,

Victoria Street, S.W.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1, THE STORY OF SWEDENBORG i

2, EDWARD IRVING: THE SHAKERS . . .17

3, THE PROPHET OF THE NEW REVELATION , .36

4, THE HYDESVILLE EPISODE .... 56

5, THE CAREER OF THE Fox SISTERS . , ,86

6, FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA , . ,120

7, THE DAWN IN ENGLAND 150

8, CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND . . .172

9, THE CAREER OF D, D. HOME , , . .189

10. THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS . , , ,217

11. THE RESEARCHES OF SIR WILLIAM CROOKES

(1870-1874) 236

12. THE EDDY BROTHERS AND THE HOLMESES. , 258

13. HENRY SLADE AND DR.MONCK . . ,289

14. COLLECTIVE INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM , 317

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LITTLE KATIE Fox GETS AN ANSWER TO HER

SIGNALS Frontispiece

\ FACING PA5E

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG 12

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS 48

MARGARETTA FOX-KANE: KATE FOX-]ENCKEN: LEAH

UNDERBILL m

D.D.HoME *9 2

SIR WILLIAM CROOKES 236

PROFESSOR CROOKES'S TEST TO SHOW THAT THE
MEDIUM AND THE SPIRIT WERE SEPARATE

ENTITIES 2 44

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 3 U

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF SWEDENBORG

IT is impossible to give any date for the early
appearances of external intelligent power of a
higher or lower type impinging upon the affairs
of men. Spiritualists are in the habit of taking March
31, 1848, as the beginning of all psychic things,
because their own movement dates from that day.
There has, however, been no time in the recorded
history of the world when we do not find traces of
preternatural interference and a tardy recognition of
them from humanity. The only difference between
these episodes and the modern movement is that the
former might be described as a case of stray wanderers
from some further sphere, while the latter bears the
sign of a purposeful and organized invasion. But as
an invasion might well be preceded by the appearance
of pioneers who search out the land, so the spirit influx
of recent years was heralded by a number of incidents
which might well be traced to the Middle Ages or
beyond them. Some term must be fixed for a com-
mencement of the narrative, and perhaps no better one
can be found than the story of the great Swedish seer,

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Emanuel Swedenborg, who has some claim to be the
father of our new knowledge of supernal matters.

When the first rays of the rising sun of spiritual
knowledge fell upon the earth they illuminated the
greatest and highest human mind before they shed
their light on lesser men. That mountain peak of
mentality was this great religious reformer and clair-
voyant medium, as little understood by his own
followers as ever the Christ has been.

In order fully to understand Swedenborg one
would need to have a Swedenborg brain, and that is
not met with once in a century. And yet by our
power of comparison and our experience of facts of
which Swedenborg knew nothing, we can realize some
part of his life more clearly than he could himself.
The object of this study is not to treat the man as a
whole, but to endeavour to place him in the general
scheme of psychic unfolding treated in this work,
from which his own Church in its narrowness would
withhold him.

Swedenborg was a contradiction in some ways to
our psychic generalizations, for it has been the habit
to say that great intellect stands in the way of personal
psychic experience. The clean slate is certainly most
apt for the writing of a message. Swedenborg's mind
was no clean slate, but was criss-crossed with every
kind of exact learning which mankind is capable of
acquiring. Never was there such a concentration
of information. He was primarily a great mining
engineer and authority on metallurgy. He was a
military engineer who helped to turn the fortunes of

THE STORY OF SWEDENBORG

one of the many campaigns of Charles XII of Sweden.
He was a great authority upon astronomy and physics,
the author of learned works upon the tides and the
determination of latitude. He was .a zoologist and an
anatomist. He was a financier and political economist
who anticipated the conclusions of Adam Smith.
Finally, he was a profound Biblical student who had
sucked in theology with his mother's milk, and lived
in the stern Evangelical atmosphere of a Lutheran
pastor during the most impressionable years of his
life. His psychic development, which occurred when
he was fifty-five, in no way interfered with his mental
activity, and several of his scientific pamphlets were
published after that date.

With such a mind it is natural enough that he
should be struck by the evidence for extra-mundane
powers which comes in the way of every thoughtful
man, but what is not natural is that he should himself
be the medium for such powers. There is a sense in
which his mentality was actually detrimental and
vitiated his results, and there was another in which it
was to the highest degree useful. To illustrate this
one has to consider the two categories into which his
work may be divided.

The first is the theological. This^seems to most
people outside the chosen flock a useless^nd perilous
side of his work. On the one hand he accepts the
Bible as being in a very particular sense the work of
God. Upon the other he contends that its true mean-
ing is entirely different from its obvious meaning, and
that it is he, and only he, who, by the help of angels,

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

is able to give the true meaning. Such a claim is
intolerable. The infallibility of the Pope would be a
trifle compared with the infallibility of Swedenborg
if such a position, were admitted. The Pope is at
least only infallible when giving his verdict on points
of doctrine ex cathedra with his cardinals around him.
Swedenborg's infallibility would be universal and un-
restricted. Nor do his explanations in the least com-
mend themselves to one's reason. When, in order to
get at the true sense of a God-given message, one has
to suppose that a horse signifies intellectual truth, an
ass signifies scientific truth, a flame signifies improve-
ment, and so on and on through countless symbols,
we seem to be in a realm of make-believe which
can only be compared with the ciphers which some
ingenious critics have detected in the plays of Shake-
speare. Not thus does God send His truth into the
world. If such a view were accepted the Sweden-
borgian creed could only be the mother of a thousand
heresies, and we should find ourselves back again
amid the hair-splittings and the syllogisms of the
mediasval schoolmen. All great and true things
are simple and intelligible. Swedenborg's theology
is neither simple nor intelligible, and that is its
condemnation.

When, however, we get behind his tiresome
exegesis of the Scriptures, where everything means
something different from what it obviously means,
and when we get at some of the general results of his
teaching, they are not inharmonious with liberal
modern thought or with the teaching which has been

THE STORY OF SWEDENBORG

received from the Other Side since spiritual com-
munication became open. Thus the general pro-
position that this world is a laboratory of souls, a
forcing-ground where the material refines out the
spiritual, is not to be disputed. He rejects the Trinity
in its ordinary sense, but rebuilds it in some extra-
ordinary sense which would be equally objectionable
to a Unitarian. He admits that every system has its
divine purpose and that virtue is not confined to
Christianity. He agrees with the Spiritualist teaching
in seeking the true meaning of Christ's life in its
power as an example, and he rejects atonement and
original sin. He sees the root of all evil in selfishness,
yet he admits that a healthy egoism, as Hegel called
it, is essential. In sexual matters his theories are
liberal to the verge of laxity. A Church he con-
sidered an absolute necessity, as if no individual could
arrange his own dealings with his Creator. Altogether,
it is such a jumble of ideas, poured forth at such length
in so many great Latin volumes, and expressed in so
obscure a style, that every independent interpreter of
it would be liable to found a new religion of his own.
Not in that direction does the worth of Swedenborg lie.

That worth is really to be found in his psychic
powers and in his psychic information which would
have been just as valuable had no word of theology
ever come from his pen. It is these powers and that
information to which we will now turn.

.Even as a lad young Swedenborg had visionary
moments, but the extremely practical and energetic
manhood which followed submerged that more
5

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

delicate side of his nature. It came occasionally to
the surface, however, all through his life, and several
instances have been put on record which show that
he possessed those powers which are usually called
" travelling clairvoyance," where the soul appears to
leave the body, to acquire information at a distance,
and to return with news of what is occurring else-
where. It is a not uncommon attribute of mediums,
and can be matched by a thousand examples among
Spiritualistic sensitives, but it is rare in people of
intellect, and rare also when accompanied by an
apparently normal state of the body while the pheno-
menon is proceeding. Thus, in the oft-quoted
example of Gothenburg, where the seer observed and
reported on a fire in Stockholm, 300 miles away, with
perfect accuracy, he was at a dinner-party with six-
teen guests, who made valuable witnesses. The story
was investigated by no less a person than the philo-
sopher Kant, who was a contemporary.

These occasional incidents were, however, merely
the signs of latent powers which came to full fruition
quite suddenly in London in April of the year 1744.
It may be remarked that though the seer was of a
good Swedish family and was elevated to the Swedish
nobility, it was none the less in London that his chief
books were published, that his illumination was begun
and finally that he died and was buried. From the
day of his first vision he continued until his death,
twenty-seven years later, to be in constant touch with
the other world. "The same night the world of
spirits, hell and heaven, were convincingly opened to

6

THE STORY OF SWEDENBORG

me, where I found many persons of my acquaintance
of all conditions. Thereafter the Lord daily opened
the eyes of my spirit to see in perfect wakefulness
what was going on in the other world, and to con-
verse, broadawake, with angels and spirits."

In his first vision Swedenborg speaks of " a kind
of vapour steaming from the pores of my body. It
was a most visible watery vapour and fell downwards
to the ground upon the carpet." This is a close
description of that ectoplasm which we have found
to be the basis of all physical phenomena. The sub-
stance has also been called " ideoplasm," because it
takes on in an instant any shape with which it is
impressed by the spirit. In this case it changed,
according to his account, into vermin, which was said
to be a sign from his Guardians that they disapproved
of his diet, and was accompanied by a clairaudient
warning that he must be more careful in that respect.

What can the world make of such a narrative ?
They may say that the man was mad, but his life in
the years which followed showed no sign of mental
weakness. Or they might say that he lied. But he
was a man who was famed for his punctilious veracity.
His friend Cuno, a banker of Amsterdam, said of him,
" When he gazed upon me with his smiling blue eyes
it was as if truth itself was speaking from them."
Was he then self-deluded and honestly mistaken ?
We have to face the fact that in the main the spiritual
observations which he made have been confirmed and
extended since his time by innumerable psychic
observers. The true verdict is that he was the first

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

and in many ways the greatest of the whole line of
mediums, that he was subject to the errors as well as
to the privileges which mediumship brings, that only
by the study of mediumship can his powers be really
understood, and that in endeavouring to separate him
from Spiritualism his New Church has shown a com-
plete misapprehension of his gifts, and of their true
place in the general scheme of Nature. As a great
pioneer of the Spiritual movement his position is both
intelligible and glorious. As an isolated figure with
incomprehensible powers, there is no place for him in
any broad comprehensive scheme of religious thought.
It is interesting to note that he considered his
powers to be intimately connected with a system of
respiration. Air and ether being all around us, it is
as if some men could breathe more ether and less air
and so attain a more etheric state. This, no doubt, is
a crude and clumsy way of putting it, but some such
idea runs through the work of many schools of
psychic thought. Laurence Oliphant, who had no
obvious connexion with Swedenborg, wrote his book
" Sympneumata " in order to explain it. The Indian
system of Yoga depends upon the same idea. But
anyone who has seen an ordinary medium go into
trance is aware of the peculiar hissing intakes with
which the process begins and the deep expirations
with which it ends. A fruitful field of study lies
there for the Science of the future. Here, as in other
psychic matters, caution is needed. The author has
known several cases where tragic results have followed
upon an ignorant use of deep-breathing psychic

THE STORT OF SWEDENBORG

exercises. Spiritual, like electrical power, has its
allotted use, but needs some knowledge and caution
in handling.

Swedenborg sums up the matter by saying that
when he communed with spirits he would for an hour
at a time hardly draw a breath, " taking in only
enough air to serve as a supply to his thoughts."
Apart from this peculiarity of respiration, Sweden-
borg was normal during his visions, though he natur-
ally preferred to be secluded at such times. He seems
to have been privileged to examine the other world
through several of its spheres, and though his theo-
logical habit of mind may have tinctured his descrip-
tions, on the other hand the vast range of his material
knowledge gave him unusual powers of observation
and comparison. Let us see what were the main facts
which he brought back from his numerous journeys,
and how far they coincide with those which have been
obtained since his day by psychic methods.

He found, then, that the other world, to which
we all go after death, consisted of a number of different
spheres representing various shades of luminosity and
happiness, each of us going to that for which our
spiritual condition has fitted us. We are judged in
automatic fashion, like going to like by some spiritual
law, and the result being determined by the total
result of our life, so that absolution or a death-bed
repentance can be of little avail. He found in these
spheres that the scenery and conditions of this world
were closely reproduced, and so also was the general
framework of society. He found houses in which

9

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

families lived, temples in which they worshipped,
halls in which they assembled for social purposes,
palaces in which rulers might dwell.

Death was made easy by the presence of celestial
beings who helped the new-comer into his fresh exist-
ence. Such new-comers had an immediate period of
complete rest. They regained consciousness in a few
days of our time.

There were both angels and devils, but they were
not of another order to ourselves. They were all
human beings who had lived on earth and who were
either undeveloped souls, as devils, or highly developed
souls, as angels.

We did not change in any way at death. Man
lost nothing by death, but was still a man in all respects,
though more perfect than when in the body. He
took with him not only his powers but also his acquired
modes of thought, his beliefs and his prejudices.

All children were received equally, whether bap-
tized or not. They grew up in the other world.
Young women mothered them until the real mother
came across.

There was no eternal punishment. Those who
were in the hells could work their way out if they
had the impulse. Those in the heavens were also in
no permanent place, but were working their way to
something higher.

There was marriage in the form of spiritual union
in the next world. It takes a man and a woman to
make a complete human unit. Swedenborg, it may
be remarked, was never married in life.

THE STORY OF StPEDENBORG

There was no detail too small for his observation
in the spirit spheres. He speaks of the architecture,
the artisans' work, the flowers and fruits, the scribes,
the embroidery, the art, the music, the literature, the
science, the schools, the museums, the colleges, the
libraries and the sports. It may all shock conventional
minds, though why harps, crowns and thrones should
be tolerated and other less material things denied,
it is hard to see.

Those who left this world old, decrepit, diseased, or
deformed, renewed their youth, and gradually assumed
their full vigour. Married couples continued together
if their feelings towards each other were close and
sympathetic. If not, the marriage was dissolved.
"Two real lovers are not separated by the death
of one, since the spirit of the deceased dwells with
the spirit of the survivor, and this even to the death
of the latter, when they again meet and are reunited,
and love each other more tenderly than before."

Such are some gleanings out of the immense store
of information which God sent to the world through
Swedenborg, Again and again they have been re-
peated by the mouths and the pens of our own
Spiritualistic illuminates. The world has so far dis-
regarded it, and clung to outworn and senseless con-
ceptions. Gradually the new knowledge is making
its way, however, and when it has been entirely
accepted the true greatness of the mission of Sweden-
borg will be recognized, while his Biblical exegesis
will be forgotten.

The New Church, which was formed in order to

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

sustain the teaching of the Swedish master, has
allowed itself to become a backwater instead of keep-
ing its rightful place as the original source of psychic
knowledge. When, the Spiritualistic movement broke
out in 1848, and when men like Andrew Jackson
Davis supported it with philosophic writings and
psychic powers which can hardly be distinguished
from those of Swedenborg, the New Church would
have been well advised to hail this development as
being on the lines indicated by their leader. Instead
of doing so, they have preferred, for some reason
which is difficult to understand, to exaggerate every
point of difference and ignore every point of resem-
blance, until the two bodies have drifted into a posi-
tion of hostility. In point of fact, every Spiritualist
should honour Swedenborg, and his bust should be in
every Spiritualist temple, as being the first and great-
est of modern mediums. On the other hand, the
New Church should sink any small differences and
join heartily in the new movement, contributing their
churches and organization to the common cause.

It is difficult on examining Swedenborg's life to
discover what are the causes which make his present-
day followers look askance at other psychic bodies.
What he did then is what they do now. Speaking of
Polhem's death the seer says : " He died on Monday
and spoke with me on Thursday. I was invited to the
funeral. He saw the hearse and saw them let .down the
coffin into the grave. He conversed with me as it
was going on, asking me why they had buried him
when he was alive. When the priest pronounced that

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (Mid. 80)
From an cngiavmg by Battcrsby in " The Ewopcan Magazine," 1/S7

THE STORY OF SWEDENBORG

he would rise again at the Day of Judgment he asked
why this was, when he had risen already. He won-
dered that such a belief could obtain, considering that
he was even now alive."

This is entirely in accord with the experience of
a present-day medium. If Swedenborg was within
his rights, then the medium is so also.

Again : " Brahe was beheaded at 10 in the morn-
ing and spoke to me at 10 that night. He was with
me almost without interruption for several days."

Such instances show that Swedenborg had no more
scruples about converse with the dead than the Christ
had when He spoke on the mountain with Moses and
Elias.

Swedenborg has laid down his own view very
clearly, but in considering it one has to remember
the time in which he lived and his want of experience
of the trend and object of the new revelation. This
view was that God, for good and wise purposes, had
separated the world of spirits from ours and that com-
munication was not granted except for cogent reasons
among which mere curiosity should not be counted.
Every earnest student of the psychic would agree with
it, and every earnest Spiritualist is averse from turning
the most solemn thing upon earth into a sort of pas-
time. , As to having a cogent reason, our main reason
is that in such an age of materialism as Swedenborg
can never have imagined, we are endeavouring to prove
the existence and supremacy of spirit in so objective
a way that it will meet and beat the materialists on
their own ground. It would be hard to imagine any
'3

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

reason more cogent than this, and therefore we have
every right to claim that if Swedenborg were now
living he would have been a leader in our modern
psychic movement,.

Some of his followers, notably Dr. Garth Wilkin-
son, have put forward another objection thus : " The
danger of man in speaking with spirits is that we are
all in association with our likes, and being full of evil
these similar spirits, could we face them, would but
confirm us in our own state of views."

To this we can only reply that though it is specious
it is proved by experience to be false. Man is not
naturally bad. The average human being is good.
The mere act of spiritual communication in its
solemnity brings out the religious side. Therefore as
a rule it is not the evil but the good influence which is
encountered, as the beautiful and moral records of
stances will show. The author can testify that in
nearly forty years of psychic work, during which he
has attended innumerable stances in many lands, he
has never on any single occasion heard an obscene
word or any message which could offend the ears of
the most delicate female. Other veteran Spiritualists
bring the same testimony. Therefore, while it is un-
doubtedly true that evil spirits are attracted to an evil
circle, in actual practice it is a very rare thing for any-
one to be incommoded thereby. When such spirits
come the proper procedure is not to repulse them, but
rather to reason gently with them and so endeavour
to make 'them realize their own condition and what
they should do for self-improvement. This has

THE STORY OF SWEDENEORG

occurred many times within the author's personal
experience and with the happiest results.

Some little personal account of Swedenborg may
fitly end this brief review of his doctrines, which is
primarily intended to indicate his position in the
general scheme. He must have been a most frugal,
practical, hard-working and energetic young man,
and a most lovable old one. Life seems to have
mellowed him into a very gentle and venerable crea-
ture. He was placid, serene, and ever ready for con-
versation which did not take a psychic turn unless his
companions so desired. The material of such con-
versations was always remarkable, but he was afflicted
with a stammer which hindered his enunciation. In
person he was tall and spare, with a spiritual face,
blue eyes, a wig to his shoulders, dark clothing,
knee-breeches, buckles, and a cane.

Swedenborg claimed that a heavy cloud was
formed round the earth by the psychic grossness of
humanity, and that from time to time there was a
judgment and a clearing up, even as the thunder-
storm clears the material atmosphere. He saw that
the world, even in his day, was drifting into a danger-
ous position owing to the unreason of the Churches
on the one side and the reaction towards absolute
want of religion which was caused by it. Modern
psychic authorities, notably Vale Owen, have spoken
of this ever-accumulating cloud, and there is a very
general feeling that the necessary cleansing process
will not be long postponed.

A notice of Swedenborg from the Spiritualistic
'5

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

standpoint may be best concluded by an extract from
his own diary. He says : "All confirmations in matters
pertaining to theology are, as it were, glued Jast into
the brains, and can with difficulty be removed, and
while they remain, genuine truths can find no place."
He was a very great seer, a great pioneer of psychic
knowledge, and his weakness lay in those very words
which he has written.

The general reader who desires to go further will
find Swedenborg's most characteristic teachings in his
" Heaven and Hell," " The New Jerusalem," and
" Arcana Codestia." His life has been admirably
done by Garth Wilkinson, Trobridge, and Brayley
Hodgetts, the present president of the English Sweden-
borg Society. In spite of all his theological sym-
bolism, his name must live eternally as the first of all
modern men who has given a description of the pro-
cess of death, and of the world beyond, which is not
founded upon the vague ecstatic and impossible
visions of the old Churches, but which actually corre-
sponds with the descriptions which we ourselves
obtain from those who endeavour to convey back to
us some clear idea of their new existence.

CHAPTER II

EDWARD IRVING: THE SHAKERS

THE story of Edward Irving and his experience
of spiritual manifestations in the years from 1830
to 1833 are f g reat interest to the psychic
student, and help to bridge the gap between Sweden-
borg on one side and Andrew Jackson Davis on the
other. The facts are as follows :

Edward Irving was of that hard-working poorer-
class Scottish stock which has produced so many great
men. Of the same stock and at the same time and
district came Thomas Carlyle. Irving was born in
Annan in the year 1792. After a hard, studious
youth, he developed into a very singular man. In
person he was a giant and a Hercules in strength, his
splendid physique being only marred by a bad out-
ward cast of one eye a defect which, like Byron's
lame foot, seemed in some sort to present an analogy
to the extremes in his character. His mind, which
was virile, broad and courageous, was warped by
early training in the narrow school of the Scottish
Church, where the hard, crude views of the old
Covenantersan impossible Protestantism which re-
presented a reaction against an impossible Catholicism
still poisoned the human soul. His mental position
was strangely contradictory, for while he had inherited

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

this cramped theology he had failed to inherit much
which is the very birthright of the poorer Scot.
He was opposed to all that was liberal, and even such
obvious measures of justice as the Reform Bill of
1832 found in him a determined opponent.

This strange, eccentric, and formidable man had his
proper environment in the iyth century, when his
prototypes were holding moorland meetings in Gallo-
way and avoiding, or possibly even attacking with the
arms of the flesh, the dragoons of Claverhouse. But,
live when he might, he was bound to write his name
in some fashion on the annals of his time. We read
of his strenuous youth in Scotland, of his rivalry with
his friend Carlyle in the affections of the clever and
vivacious Jane Welsh, of his enormous walks and feats
of strength, of his short career as a rather violent
school-teacher at Kirkcaldy, of his marriage to the
daughter of a minister in that town, and finally of
his becoming curate or assistant to the great Dr.
Chalmers, who was, at that time, the most famous
clergyman in Scotland, and whose administration of
his parish in Glasgow is one of the outstanding chap-
ters in the history of the Scottish Church. In this
capacity he gained that man-to-man acquaintance
with the poorer classes which is the best and most
practical of all preparations for the work of life.
Without it, indeed, no man is complete.

There was at that time a small Scottish church in
Hatton Garden, off Holborn, in London, which
had lost its pastor and was in a poor position, both
spiritually and financially. The vacancy was offered

EDWARD IRVING

to Dr. Chalmers's assistant, and after some heart-
searchings was accepted by him. Here his sonorous
eloquence and his thoroughgoing delivery of the
Gospel message began to attract attention, and sud-
denly the strange Scottish giant became the fashion.
The humble street was blocked by carriages on a
Sunday morning, and some of the most distinguished
men and women in London scrambled for a share of
the very scanty accommodation. There is evidence
that this extreme popularity did not last, and possibly
the preacher's habit of expounding a text for an hour
and a half was too much for the English weakling,
however acceptable north of the Tweed. Finally
a move was made to a larger church in Regent
Square which could hold two thousand people, and
there were sufficient stalwarts to fill this in decent
fashion, though the preacher had ceased to excite the
interest of his earlier days. Apart from his oratory,
Irving seems to have been a conscientious and hard-
working pastor, striving assiduously for the temporal
needs of the more humble of his flock, and ever
ready at all hours of the day or night to follow
the call of duty.

Soon, however, there came a rift between him and
the authorities of his Church. The matter in dispute
made a very fine basis for a theological quarrel of the
type which has done more harm in the world than the
smallpox. The question was whether the Christ had
in Him the possibility of sin, or whether the Divine
portion of His being was a complete and absolute bar
to physical temptations. The assessors contended that
19

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

the association of such ideas as sin and Christ was a
blasphemy. The obdurate clergyman, however,
replied with some show of reason that unless the Christ
had the capacity for sin, and successfully resisted it,
His earthly lot was not the same as ours, and His
virtues deserved less admiration. The matter was
argued out in London with immense seriousness and
at intolerable length, with the result that the presby-
tery declared its unanimous disapproval of the pastor's
views. As, however, his congregation in turn ex-
pressed their unqualified approval, he was able to
disregard the censure of his official brethren.

But a greater stumbling-block lay ahead, and
Irving's encounter with it has made his name live as
all names live which associate themselves with real
spiritual issues. It should first be understood that
Irving was deeply interested in Biblical prophecy,
especially the vague and terrible images of St. John,
and the strangely methodical forecasts of Daniel. He
brooded much over the years and the days which were
fixed as the allotted time before the days of wrath
should precede the Second Coming of the Lord.
There were others at that time 1830 and onwards
who were deeply immersed in the same sombre specu-
lations. Among these was a wealthy banker named
Drummond, who had a large country house at Albury,
near Guildford. At this house these Biblical students
used to assemble from time to time, discussing and
comparing their views with such thoroughness that it
was not unusual for their sittings to extend over a
week, each day being fully taken up from breakfast

EDWARD IRVING

to supper. This band was called the " Albury Pro-
phets." Excited by the political portents which led
up to the Reform Bill, they all considered that the
foundations of the deep had been loosened. It is hard
to imagine what their reaction would have been had
they lived to witness the Great War. As it was, they
were convinced that the end of all things was at hand,
and they looked out eagerly for signs and portents,
twisting the vague and sinister words of the prophets
into all manner of fantastic interpretations.

Finally, above the monotonous horizon of human
happenings there did actually appear a strange mani-
festation. There had been a legend that the spiritual
gifts of earlier days would reassert themselves before
the end, and here apparently was the forgotten gift
of tongues coming back into the experience of man-
kind. It had begun in 1830 on the western side of
Scotland, where the names of the sensitives, Campbell
and MacDonald, spoke of that Celtic blood which has
always been more alive to spiritual influences than
the heavier Teutonic strain. The Albury Prophets
were much exercised in their minds, and an emissary
was sent from Mr. Irving's church to investigate and
report. He found that the matter was very real. The
people were of good repute, one of them, indeed, a
woman whose character could best be described as
x saintly. The strange tongues in which they both
.talked broke out at intervals, and the manifestation
was accompanied by healing miracles and other signs
of power. Clearly it was no fraud or pretence, but a
real influx of some strange force which carried onf

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

back to apostolic times. The faithful waited eagerly
for further developments.

These were not long in coming, and they broke
out in Irving's own church. It was in July, 1831, that
it was rumoured that certain members of the congre 7
gation had been seized in this strange way in their
own homes, and discreet exhibitions were held in the
vestry and other secluded places. The pastor and his
advisers were much puzzled as to whether a more
public demonstration should be tolerated. The
matter settled itself, however, after the fashion of
affairs of the spirit, and in October of the same year
the prosaic Church of Scotland service was suddenly
interrupted by the strange outcry of the possessed.
It came so suddenly and with such vehemence, both
at the morning and afternoon service, that a panic
set in in the church, and had it not been for their
giant pastor thundering out, " Oh, Lord, still the
tumult of the people ! " a tragedy might have followed.
There was also a good deal of hissing and uproar from
those who were conservative in their 'tastes. Alto-
gether the sensation was a considerable one, and the
newspapers of the day were filled with it, though
their comments were far from respectful or favourable.

The sounds came from both women and men, and
consisted in the first instance of unintelligible noises
which were either mere gibberish, or some entirely
unknown language. " Sudden, doleful, and unin-
telligible sounds," says one witness. " There was a
force and fulness of sound," said another description,
" of which the delicate female organs would seem

EDWARD IRVING

incapable." " It burst forth with an astounding and
terrible crash," says a third. Many, however, were -
greatly impressed by these sounds, and among them
was Irving himself. " There is a power in the voice
to thrill the heart and overawe* the spirit after a
manner which I have never felt. There is a merch
and 'majesty and sustained grandeur of which I havs
never heard the like. It is likest to one of the simplest
and most ancient chants in the cathedral service in so
much that I have been led to think that these chants,
which can be traced as high as Ambrose, are recollec-
tions of the inspired utterances of the primitive
Church."

Soon, moreover, intelligible English words were
added to the strange outbursts. These usually con-
sisted of ejaculations and prayers, with no obvious
sign of any supernormal character save that they broke
out at unseasonable hours and independently of the
will of the speaker. In some cases, however, these
powers developed until the gifted one was able, while
under the influence, to give long harangues, to lay
down the law in most dogmatic fashion over points of
doctrine, and to issue reproofs which occasionally
were turned even in the direction of the long-
suffering pastor.

There may have been in fact, there probably
was a true psychic origin to these phenomena, but
they had developed in a soil of narrow bigoted
theology, which was bound to bring them to ruin.
Even Swedenborg's religious system was too narrow
to receive the full undistorted gifts of the spirit, so

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

one can imagine what they became when contracted
within the cramped limits of a Scottish churph, where
every truth must be shorn or twisted until it corre-
sponds with some fantastic text. T>e new good
wine will not go "into the old narrow bottles. Had
there been a fuller revelation, then doubtless other
messages would have been received in other fashions
which would have presented the matter in its just
proportions, and checked one spiritual gift by others.
But there was no development save towards chaos.
Some of the teaching received could not be recon-
ciled with orthodoxy, and was therefore obviously of
the devil. Some of the sensitives condemned others
as heretics. Voice was raised against voice. Worst of
all, some of the chief speakers became convinced
themselves that their own speeches were diabolical.
Their chief reason seems to have been that they did
not accord with their own spiritual convictions, which
would seem to some of us rather an indication that
they were angelic. They entered also upon the slip-
pery path of prophecy, and were abashed when their
own prophecies did not materialize.

Some of the statements which came through these
sensitives, and which shocked their religious sensi-
bilities, might seem to deserve serious consideration
by a more enlightened generation. Thus one of
these Bible-worshippers is recorded as saying, con-
cerning the Bible Society, "That it was the curse
going through the land, quenching the Spirit of
God, by the letter of the Word of God." Right or
wrong, such an utterance would seem to be inde-

EDWARD IRVING

pendent of him who uttered it, and it is in close
accord with many of the spiritual teachings which
we receive to-day. So long as the letter is regarded
as sacred, just so long can anything, even pure
materialism, be proved from that volume. ~-

One of the chief mouthpieces of the spirit was a
certain Robert Baxter not to be confused with the
Baxter who some thirty years later was associated
with certain remarkable prophecies. This Robert
Baxter seems to have been a solid, earnest, prosaic
citizen who viewed the Scriptures much as a lawyer
views a legal document, with an exact valuation of
every phrase especially of such phrases as fitted into
his own hereditary scheme of religion. He was an
honest man with a restless conscience, which con-
tinually worried him over the smaller details, while
leaving him quite unperturbed as to the broad plat-
form upon which his beliefs were constructed. This
man was powerfully affected by the influx of spirit-
to use his own phrase, " his mouth was opened in
power." According to him, January 14, 1832, was
the beginning of those mystical 1,260 days which
were to precede the Second Coming and the end of
the world. Such a prediction must have been particu-
larly sympathetic to Irving with his millennial dreams.
But long before the days were fulfilled Irving was
in his grave, and Baxter had forsworn those voices
which had, in this instance at least, deceived him.

Baxter has written a pamphlet with the porten-
tous title, " Narrative of Facts, Characterising the
Supernatural Manifestations, in Members of Mr.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

living's Congregation, and other Individuals, in Eng-
land and Scotland, and formerly in the Writer Him-
self." Spiritual truth could no more come through
such a mind than white light could come through a
prism, and yet in this account he has to admit the
occurrence of many things which seem clearly pre-
ternatural, mixed up with much that is questionable,
and some things which are demonstrably false. The
object of the pamphlet is mainly to forswear his
evil and invisible guides, so that he may return to
the safe if flatfish bosom of the Scottish Church. It is
noticeable, however, that a second member of Irving's
congregation wrote an answering pamphlet with an
even longer title, which showed that Baxter was right_
so long as he was prompted by the spirit, and wrong
in his Satanic inferences. This pamphlet is interest-
ing as containing letters from various people who
possessed the gift of tongues, showing that they were
earnest-minded folk who were incapable of any
conscious deception.

What is an impartial psychic student who is
familiar with more modern phases to say to this
development ? Personally it seems to the author to
have been a true psychic influx, blanketed and smoth-
ered by a petty sectarian theology of the letter-
perfect description for which the Pharisees were
reproved. If he may venture his individual opinion,
it is that the perfect recipient of spiritual teaching is
the earnest man who has worked his way through all
the orthodox creeds, and whose mind, eager and re-
ceptive, is a blank surface ready to register a new
26

EDWARD IRVING

impression exactly as received. He becomes the true
child and pupil of other-world teaching, and all
other types of Spiritualist appear to be compromises.
This does not alter the fact that personal nobility of
character may make the honest compromiser a far
higher type than the pure Spiritualist, but it applies
only to the actual philosophy. The field of Spiritual-
ism is infinitely broad, and on it every variety of
Christian, as well as the Moslem, the Hindu or
the Parsee, can dwell in brotherhood. But a mere
acceptance of spirit return and communion is not
enough. Many savages have that. We need a moral
code as well, and whether we regard Christ as a
benevolent teacher or as a divine ambassador, His
actual ethical teaching in one form or another, even
if not coupled with His name, is an essential thing
for the upliftment of mankind. But always it must
be checked by reason, -and acted upon in the spirit
and not according to the letter.

This, however, is digression. In the voices of
1831 there are the signs of real psychic power. It
is a recognized spiritual law that all psychic mani-
festations become distorted when seen through the
medium of narrow sectarian religion. It is also a law
that pompous, inflated persons attract mischievous
entities and are the butts of the spirit world, being
made game of by the use of large names and by pro-
phecies which make the prophet ridiculous. Such
were the guides who descended upon the flock of
Mr. Irving, and produced various effects, good or
bad, according to the instrument used.
27

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

The unity of the Church, which had been shaken
by the previous censure of the presbytery, dissolved
under this new trial. There was a large secession,
and the building was claimed by the trustees. Irving
and the stalwarts who were loyal to him wandered
forth in search of new premises, and found them in
the hall used by Robert Owen, the Socialist, philan-
thropist, and free-thinker, who was destined twenty
years later to be one of the pioneer converts to
Spiritualism. Here, in Gray's Inn Road, Irving
rallied the faithful. It cannot be denied that the
Church, as he organized it, with its angel, its elders,
its deacons, its tongues, and its prophecies, was the
best reconstruction of a primitive Christian Church
that has ever been made. If Peter or Paul reincar-
nated in London they would be bewildered, and
possibly horrified, by St. Paul's or by Westminster
Cathedral, but they would certainly have been in a
perfectly familiar atmosphere in the gathering over
which Irving presided. A wise man recognizes that
God may be approached from innumerable angles.
The minds of men and the spirit of the times vary
in their reaction to the great central cause, and one
can only insist upon a broad charity both in oneself
and in others. It was in this that Irving seems to
have been wanting. It was always by the standard
of that which was a sect among sects that he would
measure the universe. There were times when he was
vaguely conscious of this, and it may be that those
wrestlings with Apollyon, of which he complains,
even as Bunyan and the Puritans of old used to com-
28

EDWARD IRVING

plain, had a strange explanation. Apollyon was really
the Spirit of Truth, and the inward struggle was not
between Faith and Sin, but was really between the
darkness of inherited dogma, and the light of inherent
and instinctive reason, God-given, and rising for ever
in revolt against the absurdities of man.

But Irving lived very intensely and the successive
crises through which he had passed had broken him
down. These contests with argumentative theologians
and with recalcitrant members of his flock may seem
trivial things to us when viewed far off down the vista
of years, but to him, with his eager, earnest, storm-
torn soul, they were vital and terrible. To the un-
fettered mind this sect or that seems a matter of
indifference, but to Irving, both from heredity and
from education, the Scottish Church was the ark of
God, and yet he, its zealous, faithful son, driven by
his own conscience, had rushed forth and had found
the great gates which contained Salvation slammed
and barred behind him. He was a branch cut from
the tree, and he withered. It is a true simile, and
it is more than a simile, for it became an actual
physical fact. This giant in early middle age wilted
and shrank. His great frame stooped. His cheeks be-
came hollow and wan. His eyes shone with the bale-
ful fever which was consuming him. And so, working
to the very end and with the words, " If I die, I die
with the Lord," upon his lips, his soul passed forth
into that clearer and more golden light where the
tired brain finds rest and the -anxious spirit enters
into a peace and assurance which life has never given.
29

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

Apart from this isolated incident of Irving's Church,
there was one other psychic manifestation of those days
which led more directly to the Hydesville revelation.
This was the outbreak of spiritual phenomena among
the Shaker communities in the United States, which
has received less attention than it deserves.

These good people seem to have had affiliations on
the one side with the Quakers, and, on the other,
with the refugees from the Cevennes, who came to
England to escape the persecution of Louis XIV.
Even in England their harmless lives did not screen
them from the persecution of the bigots, and they
were forced to emigrate to America about the time
of the War of Independence. There they founded
settlements in various parts, living simple cleanly
lives upon communistic principles, with sobriety and
chastity as their watchword. It is not surprising that
as the psychic cloud of other-world power slowly
settled upon the earth it should have found its first
response from such altruistic communities. In 1837
there were sixty such bodies in existence, and all of
them responded in various degrees to the new power.
They kept their experiences very strictly to them-
selves at the time, for as their elders subsequently
explained, they would certainly have been all con-
signed to Bedlam had they told what had actually
occurred. Two books, however, " Holy Wisdom "
and " The Sacred Roll," which arose from their ex-
periences, appeared afterwards.

The phenomena seem to have begun with the
usual warning noises, and to have been followed by
30

THE SHAKERS

the obsession from time to time of nearly all the
community. Everyone, man and woman, proved to
be open to spirit possession. The invaders only
came, however, after asking permission, and at such
intervals as did not interfere with the work of the
community. The chief visitants were Red Indian
spirits, who came collectively as a tribe. " One or
two elders might be in the room below, and there
would be a knock at the door and the Indians would
ask whether they might come in. Permission being
given, a whole tribe of Indian spirits would troop into
the house, and in a few minutes you would hear
'Whoop ! ' here and 'Whoop !' there all over the house."
The whoops emanated,'of course, from the vocal organs
of the Shakers themselves, but while under the Indian
control they would talk Indian among themselves,
dance Indian dances, and in all ways show that they
were really possessed by the Redskin spirits.

One may well ask why should these North
American aborigines play so large a part not only in
the inception, but in the continuance of this move-
ment ? There are few physical mediums in this
country, as well as in America, who have not a Red
Indian guide, whose photograph has not infrequently
been obtained by psychic means, still retaining his
scalp-locks and his robes. It is one of the many
mysteries which we have still to solve. We can only
say for certain, from our own experience, that such
spirits are powerful in producing physical phenomena,
but that they never present the higher teaching which
comes to us either from European or from Oriental
31

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

spirits. The physical phenomena are still, however,
of very great importance, as calling the attention of
sceptics to the matter, and therefore the part assigned
to the Indians is a very vital one. Men of the rude
open-air type seem in spirit life to be especially asso-
ciated with the crude manifestations of spirit activity,
and it has been repeatedly asserted, though it is hard
to say how it could be proved, that their chief organizer
was an adventurer who in life was known as Henry
Morgan, and died as Governor of Jamaica, a post
to which he had been appointed in the time of
Charles II. Such unproved assertions are, it must be
admitted, of no value in our present state of know-
ledge, but they should be put on record as further
information may in time shed some new light upon
them. John King, which is the spirit name of the
alleged Henry Morgan, is a very real being, and there
are few Spiritualists of experience who have not seen
his heavily-bearded face and heard his masterful
voice. As to the Indians who are his colleagues or
his subordinates, one can but hazard the conjecture
that they are children of Nature who are nearer
perhaps to the primitive secrets than other more
complex races. It may be that their special work is
of the nature of an expiation and atonement an
explanation which the author has heard from their lips.
These remarks may well seem a digression from
the actual experience of the Shakers, but the diffi-
culties raised in the mind of the inquirer arise largely
from the number of new facts, without any order or
explanation, which he is forced to encounter. His
32

THE SHAKERS

mind has no possible pigeon-hole into which they can
be fitted. Therefore, the author will endeavour in
these pages to provide so far as possible from his own
experience, or from that of those upon whom he can
rely, such sidelights as may make the matter more
intelligible, and give at least a hint of those laws which
lie behind, and are as binding upon spirits as upon
ourselves. Above all, the inquirer must cast away for
ever the idea that the discarnate are necessarily wise or
powerful entities. They have their individuality and
their limitations, even as we have, and these limitations
become the more marked when they have to manifest
themselves through so foreign a substance as matter.

The Shakers had among them a man of out-
standing intelligence named F. W. Evans, who gave
a very clear and entertaining account of all this
matter, which may be sought by the curious in the
New York Daily Graphic of November 24, 1874,
and has been largely copied into Colonel Olcott's
work, " People From the Other World."

/ Mr. Evans and his associates after the first disturb-
ance, physical and mental, caused by this spirit
irruption, settled down to study what it really meant.
They came to the conclusion that the matter could
be divided into three phases. The first phase was the
actual proving to the observer that the thing was real.
The second phase was one of instruction, as even the
humblest spirit can bring information as to his own
experience of after-death conditions. The third phase
was called the missionary phase and was the practical
application. The Shakers came to the unexpected

D 33

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

conclusion that the Indians were there not to teach
but to be taught. They proselytized them, therefore,
exactly as they would have done in life. A similar
experience has occurred since then in very many
Spiritualistic circles, where humble and lowly spirits
have come to be taught that which they should have
learned in this world had true teachers been available.
One may well ask why the higher spirits over there
do not supply this want ? The answer given to the
author upon one notable occasion was, " These people
are very much nearer to you than to us. You can
reach them where we fail."

It is clear from this that the good Shakers were
never in touch with the higher guides possibly they
did not need guidance and that their visitors were
on a low plane. For seven years these visitations con-
tinued. When the spirits left they informed their
hosts that they were going, but that presently they
would return, and that when they did so they would
pervade the world and enter the palace as well as the
cottage. It was just four years later that the Rochester
knockings broke out. When they did so, Elder
Evans and another Shaker visited Rochester and saw
the Fox sisters. Their arrival was greeted with great
enthusiasm from the unseen forces, who proclaimed
that this was indeed the work which had been foretold.

One remark of Elder Evans is worth transcribing.
When asked, " Don't you think your experience is
much the same as that of monks and nuns in the
Middle Ages ? " he did not answer. " Ours were
angelic but -these others were diabolical," as would
34

THE SHAKERS

have been said had the situation been reversed, but
he replied with fine candour and breadth of mind,
'' Certainly. That is the proper explanation of them
through all the ages. The visions- of Saint Theresa
were Spiritualistic visions just such as we have fre-
quently had vouchsafed to the members of our
society." When further asked whether magic and
necromancy did not belong to the same category, he
answered, " Yes. That is when Spiritualism is used
for selfish ends." It is clear that there were men
living nearly a century ago who were capable of
instructing our wise men of to-day.

That very remarkable woman, Mrs. Hardinge
Britten, has recorded in her " Modern American
Spiritualism " how she came in close contact with the
Shaker community, and was shown by them the
records, taken at the time, of their spiritual visitation.
In them it was stated that the new era was to be in-
augurated by an extraordinary discovery of material
as well as of spiritual wealth. This is a most remark-
able prophecy, as it is a matter of history that the
goldfields of California were discovered within a very
short time of the psychic outburst. A Swedenborg
with his doctrine of correspondences might perhaps
contend that the one was complementary to the other.

This episode of the Shaker manifestations is a very
distinct link between the Swedenborg pioneer work
and the period of Davis and the Fox sisters. We shall
now consider the career of the former, which is
intimately associated with the rise and progress of the
modern psychic movement.
35

CHAPTER III

THE PROPHET OF THE NEW REVELATION

A DREW JACKSON DAVIS was one of the
most remarkable men of whom we have any
exact record. Born in 1 826 on the banks of the
Hudson, his mother was an uneducated woman, with
a visionary turn which was allied to vulgar supersti-
tion, while his father was a drunken worker in leather.
He has written the details of his own childhood in a
curious book, " The Magic Staff," which brings home
to us the primitive and yet forceful life of the American
provinces in the first half of last century. The people
were rude and uneducated, but their spiritual side was
very much alive, and they seem to have been reaching
out continually for some new thing. It was in these
country districts of New York in the space of a few
years that both Mormonism and modern Spiritualism
were evolved.

There never could have been a lad with fewer
natural advantages than Davis. He was feeble in
body and starved in mind. Outside an occasional
school primer he could only recall one book that he
had ever read up to his sixteenth year. Yet in that
poor entity there lurked such spiritual forces that
before he was twenty he had written one of the most
profound and original books of philosophy ever pro-
36

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

duced. Could there be a clearer proof that nothing
came from himself, and that he was but a conduit pipe
through which flowed the knowledge of that vast
reservoir which finds such inexplicable outlets ? The
valour of a Joan of Arc, the sanctity of a Theresa, the
wisdom of a Jackson Davis, the supernormal powers
of a Daniel Home, all come from the same source.

In his later boyhood, Davis's latent psychic powers
began to develop. Like Joan, he heard voices in the
fields gentle voices which gave him good advice and
comfort. Clairvoyance followed this clairaudience.
At the time of his mother's death, he had a striking
vision of a lovely home in a land of brightness which
he conjectured to be the place to which his mother had
gone. His full capacity was tapped, however, by the
chance that a travelling showman who exhibited the
wonders of mesmerism came to the village and experi-
mented upon Davis, as well as on many other young
rustics who desired to experience the sensation. It
was soon found that Davis had very remarkable
clairvoyant powers.

These were developed not by the peripatetic
mesmerist, but by a local tailor named Levingston,
who seems to have been a pioneer thinker. He was
so intrigued by the wonderful gifts of his subject, that
he abandoned his prosperous business and devoted his
whole time to working with Davis and to using his
clairvoyant powers for the diagnosis of disease. Davis
had developed the power, common among psychics,
of seeing without the eyes, including things which
could not be seen in any case by human vision. At

37

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

first, the gift was used as a sort of amusement in reading
the letters or the watches of the assembled rustics
when his eyes were bandaged. In such cases all parts
of the body can assume the function of sight, and the
reason probably is* that the etheric or spiritual body,
which possesses the same organs as the physical, is
wholly or partially disengaged, and that it registers
the impression. Since it might assume any posture,
or might turn completely round, one would naturally
get vision from any angle, and an explanation is
furnished of such cases as the author met in the north
of England, where Tom Tyrrell, the famous medium,
used to walk round a room, admiring the pictures,
with the back of his head turned towards the walls
on which they were hung. Whether in such cases
the etheric eyes see the picture, or whether they see
the etheric duplicate of the picture, is one of the
many problems which we leave to our descendants.

Levingston used Davis at first for medical diag-
nosis. He described how the human body became
transparent to his spirit eyes, which seemed to act from
the centre of his forehead. Each organ stood out
clearly and with a special radiance of its own which
was dimmed in case of disease. To the orthodox
medical mind, with which the author has much sym-
pathy, such powers are suspect as opening a door for
quackery, and yet he is bound to admit that all that
was said by Davis has been corroborated within his
own experience by Mr. Bloomfield, of Melbourne,
who described to him the amazement which he felt
when this power came suddenly upon him in the
38

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

street, and revealed the anatomy of two persons who
were walking in front of him. So well attested are
such powers that it has been not unusual for medical
men to engage clairvoyants as helpers in diagnosis.
Hippocrates says, " The affections suffered by the
body the soul sees with shut eyes." Apparently,
then, the ancients knew something of such methods.
Davis's ministrations were not confined to those who
were in his presence, but hi? soul or etheric body
could be liberated by the magnetic manipulation of
his employer, and could be sent forth like a carrier
pigeon with the certainty that it would come home
again bearing any desired information. Apart from
the humanitarian mission on which it was usually
engaged it would sometimes roam at will, and he has
described in wonderful passages how he would see a
translucent earth beneath him, with the great veins of
mineral beds shining through like masses of molten
metal, each with its own fiery radiance.

It is notable that at this earlier phase of Davis's
psychic experience he had no memory when he
returned ' from trance of what his impressions had
been. They were registered, however, upon his sub-
conscious mind, and at a later date he recalled them
all clearly. For the time he was a source of instruc-
tion to others but remained ignorant himself.

Until then his development had been on lines
which are not uncommon, and which could be matched
within the experience of every psychic student. But
then there occurred an episode which was entirely
novel and which is described in close detail in the

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

autobiography. Put briefly, the facts were these.
On the evening of March 6, 1 844, Davis was suddenly
possessed by some power which led him to fly from
the little town of Poughkeepsie, where he lived, and
to hurry off, in a condition of semi-trance, upon a
rapid journey. When he regained his clear per-
ceptions he found himself among wild mountains, and
there he claims to 'have met two venerable men with
whom he held intimate and elevating communion, the
one upon medicine and the other upon morals. All
night he was out, and when he inquired his where-
abouts next morning he was told that he was in the
Catskill Mountains and forty miles from his home.
The whole narrative reads like a subjective experience,
a dream or a vision, and one would not hesitate to
place it as such were it not for the details of his re-
ception and the meal he ate upon his return. It
is a possible alternative that the flight into the moun-
tains was a reality and the interviews a dream. He
claims that he afterwards identified his two mentors
as Galen and Swedenborg, which is interesting as being
the first contact with the dead which he had ever
recognized. The whole episode seems visionary, and
had no direct bearing upon the lad's remarkable future.
He felt higher powers stirring within him, and it
was remarked to him that when he was asked pro-
found questions in the mesmeric trance he always
replied, " I will answer that in my book." In his
nineteenth year he felt that the hour for writing the
book had come. The mesmeric influence of Leving-
ston did not, for some reason, seem suited for this, and
40

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

a Dr. Lyon was chosen as the new mesmerist. Lyon
threw up his practice and went with his singular
protege" to New York, where they presently called
upon the Rev. William Fishbough to come and act
as amanuensis. The intuitional selection seems to
have been justified, for he also at once gave up his
work and obeyed the summons. Then, the apparatus
being ready, Lyon threw the lad day after day into
the magnetic trance, and his utterances were taken
down by the faithful secretary. There was no money
and no publicity in the matter, and even the most
sceptical critic cannot but admit that the occupation
and objects of these three men were a wonderful con-
trast to the money-making material world which
surrounded them. They were reaching out to the
beyond, and what can man do that is nobler ?

It is to be understood that a pipe can carry no
more than its own diameter permits. The diameter
of Davis was very different from that of Swedenborg.
Each got knowledge while in an illuminated state.
But Swedenborg was the most learned man in
Europe, while Davis was as ignorant a young man as
could be found in the State of New York. Sweden-
borg's revelation was perhaps the greater, though
more likely to be tinged by his own brain. The
revelation of Davis was incomparably the greater
miracle.

Dr. George Bush, Professor of Hebrew in the
University of New York, who was one of those pre-

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

I can solemnly affirm that I have heard Davis correctly
quote the Hebrew language in his lectures, and display
a knowledge of geology which would have been astonishing
in a person of his age, even if he had devoted years to the
study. He has discussed, with the most signal ability,
the profoundest questions of historical and biblical archae-
ology, of mythology, of the origin and affinity of language,
and the progress of civilization among the different nations
of the globe, which would do honour to any scholar of the
age, even if in reaching them he had the advantage of access
to all the libraries in Christendom. Indeed, if he had
acquired all the information he gives forth in these lectures,
not in the two years since he left the shoemaker's bench,
but in his whole life, with the most assiduous study, no
prodigy of intellect of which the world has ever heard
would be for a moment compared with him, yet not a single
volume or page has he ever read.

Davis has a remarkable pen-picture of himself at
that moment. He asks us to take stock of his equip-
ment. " The circumference of his head is unusually
small," says he. " If size is the measure of power,
then this youth's mental capacity is unusually limited.
His lungs are weak and unexpanded. He had not
dwelt amid refining influences manners ungentle
and awkward. He has not read a book save one.
He knows nothing of grammar or the rules of lan-
guage, nor associated with literary or scientific per-
sons." Such was the lad of nineteen from whom
there now poured a perfect cataract of words and ideas
which are open to the criticism not of simplicity, but
of being too complex and too shrouded in learned
terms, although always with a consistent thread of
reason and method beneath them.
4*

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

It is very well to talk of the subconscious mind,
but this has usually been taken as the appearance of
ideas which have been received and then submerged.
When, for example, the developed Davis could recall
what had happened in his trances during his un-
developed days, that was a clear instance of the
emerging of the buried impressions. But it seems
an abuse of words to talk of the unconscious mind
when we are dealing with something which could
never by normal means have reached any stratum
of the mind, whether conscious or not.

Such was the beginning of Davis's great psychic
revelation which extended eventually over many
books and is all covered by the name of the " Har-
monial Philosophy." Of its nature and its place in
psychic teaching we shall treat later.

In this phase of his life Davis claims still to have
been under the direct influence of the person whom
he afterwards identified as Swedenborg a name quite
unfamiliar to him at the time. From time to time he
received a clairaudient summons to "go up into the
mountain." This mountain was a hill on the farther
bank of the Hudson opposite Poughkeepsie. There
on the mountain he claims that he met and spoke
with a venerable figure. There seems to have been
none of the details of a materialization, and the inci-
dent has no analogy in our psychic experience, save
indeed and one speaks with all reverence when the
Christ also went up into a mountain and communed
with the forms of Moses and Elias. There the analogy
seems complete.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Davis does not appear to have been at all a religi-
ous man in the ordinary conventional sense, although
he was drenched with true spiritual power. His
views, so far as one can follow them, were very critical
as regards Biblical revelation, and, to put it at the
lowest, he was no believer in literal interpretation.
But he was honest, earnest, unvenal, anxious to get
the truth and conscious of his responsibility in
spreading it.

For two years the unconscious Davis continued to
dictate his book upon the secrets of Nature, while
the conscious Davis did a little self-education in New
York with occasional restorative visits to Pough-
keepsie. He had begun to attract the attention of
some serious people, Edgar Allan Poe being one of
his visitors. His psychic development went on, and
before he reached his twenty-first year he had
attained a state when he needed no second person to
throw him into trance but could do it for himself.
His subconscious memory too was at last opened, and
he was able to go over the whole long vista of his
experiences. It was at this time that he sat by a
dying woman and observed every detail of the
soul's departure, a wonderful description of which is
given in the first volume of the " Great Harmonia."
Although this description has been issued as a separate
pamphlet it is not as well known as it should be, and
a short epitome of it may interest the reader.

He begins by the consoling reflection that his own
soul-flights, which were death in everything save
duration, had shown him that the experience was

44

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

" interesting and delightful," and that those symptoms
which appear to be signs of pain are really the uncon-
scious reflexes of the body, and have no significance.
He then tells how, having first thrown himself into
what he calls the " Superior condition," he thus
observed the stages from the spiritual side. " The
material eye can only see what is material, and the
spiritual what is spiritual," but as everything would
seem to have a spiritual counterpart the result is the
same. Thus when a spirit comes to us it is not us
that it perceives but our etheric bodies, which are,
however, duplicates of our real ones.

It was this etheric body which Davis saw emerging
from its poor outworn envelope of protoplasm, which
finally lay empty upon the bed like the shrivelled
chrysalis when the moth is free. The process began
by an extreme concentration in the brain, which
became more and more luminous as the extremities
became darker. It is probable that man never thinks
so clearly, or is so intensely conscious, as he becomes
after all means of indicating his thoughts have left him.
Then the new body begins to emerge, the head disen-
gaging itself first. Soon it has completely freed itself,
standing at right-angles to the corpse, with its feet near
the head, and with some luminous vital band between
which corresponds to the umbilical cord. When the
cord snaps a small portion is drawn back into the dead
body, and it is this which preserves it from instant
putrefaction. As to the etheric body, it takes some
little time to adapt itself to its new surroundings, and
in this instance it then passed out through the open
45

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

doors. " I saw her pass through the adjoining room,
out of the door and step from the house into the
atmosphere. . . . Immediately upon her emergement
from the house she was joined by two friendly spirits
from the spiritual country, and after tenderly recog-
nizing and communing with each other the three, in
the most graceful manner, began ascending obliquely
through the ethereal envelopment of our globe.
They walked so naturally and fraternally together
that I could scarcely realize the fact that they trod the
air they seemed to be walking on the side of a
glorious but familiar mountain. I continued to gaze
upon them until the distance shut them from my
view."

Such is the vision of Death as seen by A. J. Davis
a very different one from that dark horror which has
so long obsessed the human imagination. If this be
the truth, then we can sympathize with Dr. Hodgson
in his exclamation, " I can hardly bear to wait."
But is it true ? We can only say that there is a great
deal of corroborative evidence.

Many who have been in the cataleptic condi-
tion, or who have been so ill that they have sunk into
deep coma, have brought back impressions very con-
sistent with Davis's explanation, though others have
returned with their minds completely blank. The
author, when at Cincinnati in 1923, was brought into
contact with a Mrs. Monk, who had been set down
as dead by her doctors, and for an hour or so had
experienced a post-mortem existence before some
freak of fate restored her to life. She wrote a short
4 6

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

account of her experience, in which she had a vivid
remembrance of walking out of the room, just as
Davis described, and also of the silver thread which
continued to unite her living soul to her comatose
body. A remarkable case was reported in Light, also
(March 25, 1922), in which the five daughters of a
dying woman, all of them clairvoyant, watched and
reported the process of their mother's death. There
again the description of the process was very analogous
to that given, and yet there is sufficient difference in
this and other accounts to suggest that the sequence
of events is not always regulated by the same laws..
Another variation of extreme interest is to be found
in a drawing done by a child medium which depicts
the soul leaving the body and is described in Mrs.
De Morgan's "From Matter to Spirit" (p. 121).
This book, with its weighty preface by the celebrated
mathematician Professor De Morgan, is one of the
pioneer works of the spiritual movement in Great
Britain. When one reflects that it was published in
1863 one's heart grows heavy at the success of those
forces of obstruction, reflected so strongly in the
Press, which have succeeded for so many years in
standing between God's message and the human race.

The prophetic power of Davis can only be got
over by the sceptic if he ignores the record. Before
1 856 he prophesied in detail the coming of the motor-
car and of the typewriter. In his book, "'The
Penetralia," appears the following:

" Question : Will utilitarianism make any dis-
coveries in other locomotive directions ? "

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

" Yes; look out about these days for carriages and
travelling saloons on country roads without horses,
without steam, without any visible motive power
moving with greater speed and far more safety than
at present. Carriages will be moved by a strange and
beautiful and simple admixture of aqueous and atmo-
spheric gases so easily condensed, so simply ignited,
and so imparted by a machine somewhat resembling
our engines, as to be entirely concealed and manage-
able between the forward wheels. These vehicles will
prevent many embarrassments now experienced by
persons living in thinly populated territories. The
first requisite for these land-locomotives will be good
roads, upon which with your engine, without your
horses, you may travel with great rapidity. These
carriages seem to me of uncomplicated construction."

" He was next asked :

" Do you perceive any plan by which to expedite
the art of writing ? "

" Yes; I am almost moved to invent an automatic
psychographer that is, an artificial soul-writer. It
may be constructed something like a piano, one brace
or scale of keys to represent the elementary sounds;
another and lower tier to represent a combination, and
still another for a rapid re-combination; so that a
person, instead of playing a piece of music, may touch
off a sermon or a poem."

So, too, this seer, in reply to a query regarding
what was then termed " atmospheric navigation,"
felt " deeply impressed " that " the necessary mechan-
ism to transcend the adverse currents of air, so that

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

we may sail as easily and safely and pleasantly as birds
is dependent on a new motive power. This power
will come. It will not only move the locomotive on
the rail, and the carriage on the country road, but the
aerial cars also, which will move through the sky from
country to country."

He predicted the coming of Spiritualism in his
" Principles of Nature," published in 1847, where he
says:

It is a truth that spirits commune with one another
while one is in the body and the other in the higher spheres
and this, too, when the person in the body is unconscious
of the influx, and hence cannot be convinced of the fact ;
and this truth will ere long present itself in the form of a
living demonstration. And the world will hail with delight
the ushering-in of that era when the interiors of men will
be opened, and the spiritual communion will be estab-
lished such as is now being enjoyed by the inhabitants of
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

In this matter Davis's teaching was definite, but
it must be admitted that in a good deal of his work he
is indefinite and that it is hard reading, for it is dis-
figured by the use of long words, and occasionally he
even invents a vocabulary of his own. It was, how-
ever, on a very high moral and intellectual level, and
might be best described as an up-to-date Christianity
with Christ's ethics applied to modern problems and
entirely freed from all trace of dogma. " Docu-
mentary Religion," as Davis called it, was not in his
opinion religion at all. That name could only be
applied to the personal product of reason and spiritu-

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

ality. Such was the general line of teaching, mixed
up with many revelations of Nature, which was laid
down in the successive books of the " Harmonial
Philosophy " which succeeded " Nature's Divine
Revelations," and occupied the next few years
of his life. Much of the teaching appeared in a
strange paper called "The Univerccelum," and much
was -spread by lectures in which he laid before the
public the results of his revelations.

In his spiritual vision Davis saw an arrangement
of the universe which corresponds closely with that
which Swedenborg had already noted, and with that
afterwards taught by the spirits and accepted by the
Spiritualists. He saw a life which resembled that of
earth, a life that may be called semi-material, with
pleasures and pursuits that would appeal to our
natures which had been by no means changed by
death. He saw study for the studious, congenial
tasks for the energetic, art for the artistic, beauty for
the lover of Nature, rest for the weary ones. He saw
graduated phases of spiritual life, through which one
slowly rose to the sublime and the celestial. He
carried his magnificent vision onward beyond the
present universe, and saw it dissolve once more into
the fire-mist from which it had consolidated, and then
consolidate once more to form the stage on which a
higher evolution could take place, the highest class
here starting as the lowest class there. This process
he saw renew itself innumerable times, covering
trillions of years, and ever working towards refinement
and purification. These spheres he pictured as con-
so

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

centric rings round the world, but as he admits that
neither time nor space define themselves clearly in his
visions, we need not take their geography in too literal
a sense. The object of life was to qualify for advance-
ment in this tremendous scheme, and the best method
of human advancement was to get away from sin
not only the sins which are usually recognized, but
also those sins of bigotry, narrowness and hardness,
which are very especially blemishes not of the
ephemeral flesh but of the permanent spirit. For
this purpose the return to simple life, simple beliefs,
and primitive brotherhood was essential. Money,
alcohol, lust, violence and priestcraft in its narrow
sense were the chief impediments to racial progress.
It must be admitted that Davis, so far as one can
follow his life, lived up to his own professions. He
was very humble-minded, and yet he was of the stuff
that saints are made of. His autobiography extends
only to 1857, so that he was little over thirty when
he published it, but it gives a very complete and some-
times an involuntary insight into the man. He was
very poor, but he was just and charitable. He was
very earnest, and yet he was patient in argument and
gentle under contradiction. The worst motives were
imputed to him, and he records them with a tolerant
smile. He gives a full account of his first two mar-
riages, which were as unusual as everything else about
him, but which reflect nothing but credit upon him.
From the date at which " The Magic Staff " finishes
he seems to have carried on the same life of alternate
writing and lecturing, winning more and more the
5*

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

ear of the world, until he died in the year 1 9 1 o at the
age of eighty-four. The last years of his life he spent
as keeper of some small book-store in Boston. The
fact that his " Harmonial Philosophy " has now passed
through some forty editions in the United States is a
proof that the seed which he scattered so assiduously
has not all fallen upon barren ground.

What is of importance to us is the part played by
Davis at the commencement of the spiritual revela-
tion. He began to prepare the ground before that
revelation occurred. He was clearly destined to be
closely associated with it, for he was aware of the
material demonstration at Hydesville upon the very
day when it occurred. From his notes there is quoted
the sentence, under the vital date of March 31,1 848 :
" About daylight this morning a warm breathing
passed over my face and I heard a voice, tender and
strong, saying, c Brother, the good work has begun
behold, a living demonstration is born.' I was left
wondering what could be meant by such a message."
It was the beginning of the mighty movement in
which he was to act as prophet. His own powers were
themselves supernormal upon the mental side, just as
the physical signs were upon the material side. Each
supplemented the other. He was, up to the limit
of his capacity, the soul of the movement, the one
brain which had a clear vision of the message
which was heralded in so novel and strange a way.
No man can take the whole message, for it is infinite,
and rises ever higher as we come into contact with
higher beings, but Davis interpreted it so well for his

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

day and generation that little can be added even now
to his conception.

He had advanced one step beyond Swedenborg,
though he had not Swedenborg's mental equipment
with which to marshal his results. Swedenborg had
seen a heaven and hell, even as Davis saw it and has
described it with fuller detail. Swedenborg did not,
however, get a clear vision of the position of the dead
and the true- nature of the spirit world with the possi-
bility of return as it was revealed to the American
seer. This knowledge came slowly to Davis. His
strange interviews with what he described as " mate-
rialized spirits " were exceptional things, and he drew
no common conclusions from them. It was later when
he was brought into contact with actual spiritual
phenomena that he was able to see the full meaning of
them. This contact was not established at Rochester,
but rather at Stratford in Connecticut, where Davis
was a witness of the Poltergeist phenomena which
broke out in the household of a clergyman, Dr.
Phelps, in the early months of 1850. A study of
these led him to write a pamphlet, " The Philosophy
of Spiritual Intercourse," expanded afterwards to a
book which contains much which the world has not
yet mastered. Some of it, in its wise restraint, may
also be commended to some Spiritualists. " Spiritu-
alism is useful as a living demonstration of a future
existence," he says. " Spirits have aided me many
times, but they do not control either my person or my
reason. They can and do perform kindly offices for
those on earth. But benefits can only be secured on

53

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

the condition that we allow them to become our
teachers and not our masters that we accept them as
companions, not as gods to be worshipped." Wise
words and a modern restatement of the vital remark
of Saint Paul that the prophet must not be subject
to his own gifts.

In order to explain adequately the life of Davis
one has to ascend to supernormal conditions. But
even then there are alternative explanations. When
one considers the following undeniable facts :

1. That he claims to have seen and heard the

materialized form of Swedenborg before he
knew anything of his teachings.

2. That something possessed this ignorant youth,

which gave him great knowledge.

3. That this knowledge took the same broad

sweeping universal lines which were charac-
teristic of Swedenborg.

4. But that they went one step farther, having

added just that knowledge of spirit power
which Swedenborg may have attained after
his death.

Considering these four points, then, is it not a
feasible hypothesis that the power which controlled
Davis was actually Swedenborg ? It would be well
if the estimable but very narrow and limited New
Church took such possibilities into account. But
whether Davis stood alone, or whether he was the
reflection of one greater than himself, the fact remains
that he was a miracle man, the inspired, learned,

54

PROPHET OF NEW REVELATION

uneducated apostle of the new dispensation. So per-
manent has been his influence that the well-known
artist and critic Mr. E. Wake Cook, in his remark-
able book " Retrogression in Art," harks back to
Davis's teaching as the one modern influence which
could recast the world. Davis left his mark deep
upon Spiritualism. " Summerland," for example, as
a name for the modern Paradise, and the whole
system of Lyceum schools with their ingenious or-
ganization, are of his devising. As Mr. Baseden
Butt has remarked, " Even to-day the full and
final extent of his influence is extremely difficult,
if not impossible, to assess."

* Occult Review, Feb., 1925.

CHAPTER IV

THE HYDESVILLE EPISODE

WE have now traced various disconnected and
irregular uprushes of psychic force in the cases
which have been set forth, and we come at last
to the particular episode which was really on a lower
level than those which had gone before, but which
occurred within the ken of a practical people who
found means to explore it thoroughly and to intro-
duce reason and system into what had been a mere
object of aimless wonder. It is true that the circum-
stances were lowly, the actors humble, the place re-
mote, and the communication sordid, being based on
no higher motive than revenge. When, however, in
the everyday affairs of this world one wishes to test
whether a telegraphic wire is in operation, one notices
whether a message comes through, and the high or
low nature of that message is quite a secondary con-
sideration. It is said that the first message which
actually came through the Transatlantic cable was a
commonplace inquiry from the testing engineer.
None the less, kings and presidents have used it since.
So it is that the humble spirit of the murdered pedlar
of Hydesville may have opened a gap into which the
angels have thronged. There is good and bad and all
that is intermediate on the Other Side as on this side
56

THE HTDESVILLE EPISODE

of the veil. The company you attract depends upon
yourself and your own motives.

Hydesville is a typical little hamlet of New York
State, with a primitive population which was, no
doubt, half-educated, but was probably, like the rest
of those small American centres of life, more detached
from prejudice and more receptive of new ideas than
any other set of people at that time. This particular
village, situated about twenty miles from the rising
town of Rochester, consisted of a cluster of wooden
houses of a very humble type. It was in one of these,
a residence which would certainly not pass the require-
ments of a British district council surveyor, that there
began this development which is already, in the
opinion of many, by far the most important thing that
America has given to the commonweal of the world.
It was inhabited by a decent farmer family of the
name of Fox a name which, by a curious coincidence,
has already been registered in religious history as that
of the apostle of the Quakers. Besides the father and
mother, who were Methodists in religion, there were
two children resident in the house at the time when
the manifestations reached such a point of intensity
that they attracted general attention. These children
were the daughters Margaret, aged fourteen, and
Kate, aged eleven. There were several other children
out in the world, of whom only one, Leah, who was
teaching music in Rochester, need come into this
narrative.

The little house had already established a some-
what uncanny reputation. The evidence to this effect
57

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

was collected and published very shortly after the
event, and seems to be as reliable as such evidence
can be. In view of the extreme importance of every-
thing which bear,s upon the matter, some extracts from
these depositions must be inserted, but to avoid dis-
location of the narrative the evidence upon this point
has been relegated to the Appendix. We will there-
fore pass at once to the time of the tenancy of the
Fox family, who took over the house on December i r,
1847. I* was not unt il *he next year 'that the
sounds heard by the previous tenants began once
more. These sounds consisted of rapping noises. A
rap would seem to be the not unnatural sound to be
produced by outside visitors when they wished to
notify their presence at the door of human life and
desired that door to be opened for them. Just such
raps (all unknown to these unread farmers) had
occurred in England in 1661 at the house of Mr.
Mompesson, at Tedworth.* Raps, too, are recorded
by Melancthon as having occurred at Oppenheim, in
Germany, in 1520, and raps were heard at the
Epworth Vicarage in 1716. Here they were once
more, and at last they were destined to have the
closed door open.

The noises do not seem to have incommoded the
Fox family until the middle of March, 1848. From
.that date onwards they continually increased in in-
tensity. Sometimes they were a mere knocking ; at
other times they sounded like the movement of furni-
ture. The children were so alarmed that they refused

THE HTDESFILLE EPISODE

to sleep apart and were taken into the bedroom of
their parents. So vibrant were the sounds that the
beds thrilled and shook. Every possible search was
made, the husband waiting on one side of the door
and the wife on the other, but the rappings still con-
tinued. It was soon noticed that daylight was inimical
to the phenomena, and this naturally strengthened the
idea of trickery, but every possible solution was tested
and failed. Finally, upon the night of March 31
there was a very loud and continued outbreak of in-
explicable sounds. It was on this night that one of
the great points of psychic evolution was reached, for
it was then that young Kate Fox challenged the unseen
power to repeat the snaps of her fingers. That rude
room, with its earnest, expectant, half-clad occupants
with eager upturned faces, its circle of candlelight,
and its heavy shadows lurking in the corners, might
well be made the subject of a great historical painting.
Search all the palaces and chancelleries of 1848, and
where will you find a chamber which has made its
place in history as secure as this little bedroom of a
shack ?

The child's challenge, though given with flippant
words, was instantly answered. Every snap was
echoed by a knock. However humble the operator
at either end, the spiritual telegraph was at last work-
ing, and it was left to the patience and moral earnest-
ness of the human race to determine how high might
be the uses to which it was put in the future. Unex-
plained forces were many in the world, but here was
a force claiming to have independent intelligence at

59

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

the back of it. That was the supreme sign of a new
departure.

Mrs. Fox was amazed at this development, and at
the further discovery that the force could apparently
see as well as hear, for when Kate snapped her fingers
without sound the rap still responded. The mother
asked a series of questions, the answers to which, given
in numerals, showed a greater knowledge of her own
affairs than she herself possessed, for the raps insisted
that she had had seven children, whereas she protested
that she had borne only six, until one who had died
early came back to her mind. A neighbour, Mrs.
Redfield, was called in, and her amusement was
changed to wonder, and finally to awe, as she also
listened to correct answers to intimate questions.

The neighbours came flocking in as some rumours
of these wonders got about, and the two children were
carried off by one of them, while Mrs. Fox went to
spend the night at Mrs. Redfield's. In their absence
the phenomena went on exactly the same as before,
which disposes once for all of those theories of cracking
toes and dislocating knees which have been so fre-
quently put forward by people unaware of the true
facts.")

Having formed a sort of informal committee of
investigation, the crowd, in shrewd Yankee fashion,
spent a large part of the night of March 3 1 in playing
question and answer with the unseen intelligence.
According to its own account he was a spirit ; he had
been injured in that house; he rapped out the name
of a former occupant who had injured him; he was
60

THE HTDESFILLE EPISODE

thirty-one years old at the time of death (which was
five years before); he had been murdered for money;
he had been buried in the cellar ten feet deep. On
descending to the cellar, dull, heavy tfhumps, coming
apparently from under the earth, broke out when the
investigator stood at the centre. There was no sound
at other times. That, then, was the place of burial !
It was a neighbour named Duesler who, first of all
modern men, called over the alphabet and got answers
by raps on the letters. In this way the name of the
dead man was obtained Charles B. Rosma. The
idea of connected messages was not developed until
four months later, when Isaac Post, a Quaker, of
Rochester, was the pioneer. These, in very brief
outline, were the events of March 31, which were
continued and confirmed upon the succeeding night,
when not fewer than a couple of hundred people had
assembled round the house. Upon April 2 it was
observed that the raps came in the day as well as at
night.

Such is a synopsis of the events of the night of
March 31, 1848, but as it was the small root out of
which sprang so great a tree, and as this whole volume
may be said to be a monument to its memory, it
would seem fitting that the story should be given m
the very words of the two original adult witnesses.
Their evidence was taken within four days of the
occurrence, and forms part of that admirable piece of
psychic research upon the part of the local committee
which will be described and commented upon later.
Mrs. Fox deposed :

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

On the night of the first disturbance we all got up,
lighted a candle and searched the entire house, the noises
continuing during the time, and being heard near the same
place. Although not very loud, it produced a jar of the
bedsteads and chairs that could be felt when we were in
bed. It was a tremulous motion, more than a sudden jar.
We could feel the jar when standing on the floor. It
continued on this night until we slept. I did not sleep
until about twelve o'clock. On March 30th we were
disturbed all night. The noises were heard in all parts
of the house. My husband stationed himself outside of
the door while I stood inside, and the knocks came on
the door between us. We heard footsteps in the pantry,
and walking downstairs ; we could not rest, and I then
concluded that the house must be haunted by some unhappy
restless spirit. I had often heard of such things, but had
never witnessed anything of the kind that I could not
account for before.

On Friday night, March 3ist, 1848, we concluded to
go to bed early and not permit ourselves to be disturbed by
the noises, but try and get a night's rest. My husband
was here on all these occasions, heard the noises, and helped
search. It was very early when we went to bed on this
night hardly dark. I had been so broken of my rest
I was almost sick. My husband had not gone to bed when
we first heard the noise on this evening. I had just lain
down. It commenced as usual. I knew it from all other
noises I had ever heard before. The children, who slept
in the other bed in the room, heard the rapping, and tried
to make similar sounds by snapping their fingers.

My youngest child, Cathie, said : " Mr. Splitfoot,
do as I do," clapping her hands. The sound instantly
followed her with the same number of raps. When she
stopped, the sound ceased for a short time. Then Mar-
garetta said, in sport, " Now, do just as I do. Count one,
62

THE HYDESVILLE EPISODE

two, three, four," striking one hand against the other at
the same time; and the raps came as before. She was
afraid to repeat them. Then Cathie said in her childish
simplicity, " Oh, mother, I know what it is. To-morrow
is April-fool day, and it's somebody trying to fool us."

I then thought I could put a test that no one in the
place could answer. I asked the noise to rap my different
children's ages, successively. Instantly, each one of my
children's ages was given correctly, pausing between them
sufficiently long to individualize them until the seventh,
at which a longer pause was made, and then three more
emphatic raps were given, corresponding to the age of
the little one that died, which was my youngest child.

I then asked : " Is this a human being that answers
my questions so correctly ? " There was no rap. I asked:
" Is it a spirit ? If it is, make two raps." Two sounds
were given as soon as the request was made. I then said :
"If it was an injured spirit, make two raps," which were
instantly made, causing the house to tremble. I asked :
" Were you injured in this house ? " The answer was
given as before. " Is the person living that injured you ? "
Answered by raps in the same manner. I ascertained by
the same method that it was a man, aged thirty-one years,
that he had been murdered in this house, and his remains
were buried in the cellar ; that his family consisted of a
wife and five children, two sons and three daughters, all
living at the time of his death, but that his wife had since
died. I asked : " Will you continue to rap if I call my
neighbours that they may hear it too ? " The raps were
loud in the affirmative.

My husband went and called in Mrs. Redfield, our
nearest neighbour. She is a very candid woman. The
girls were sitting up in bed clinging to each other, and
trembling with terror. I think I was as calm as I am now.
Mrs. Redfield came immediately (this was about half-past
63

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

seven), thinking she would have a laugh at the children.
But when she saw them pale with fright, and nearly speech-
less, she was amazed, and believed there was something
more serious than she had supposed. I asked a few ques-
tions for her, and was answered as before. He told her
age exactly. She then called her husband, and the same
questions were asked and answered.

Then Mr. Redfield called in Mr. Duesler and wife,
and several others. Mr. Duesler then called in Mr.
and Mrs. Hyde, also Mr. and Mrs. Jewell. Mr. Duesler
asked many questions, and received answers. I then named
all the neighbours I could think of, and asked if any of them
had injured him, and received no answer. Mr. Duesler
then asked questions and received answers . He asked :
" Were you murdered ? " Raps affirmative. " Can your
murderer be brought to justice ? " No sound. " Can he
be punished by the law ? " No answer. He then said :
" If your murderer cannot be punished by the law, manifest
it by raps," and the raps were made clearly and distinctly.
In the same way, Mr. Duesler ascertained that he was
murdered in the east bedroom about five years ago and that

the murder was committed by a Mr. on a Tuesday

night at twelve o'clock ; that he was murdered by having his'
throat cut with a butcher knife ; that the body was taken
down to the cellar ; that it was not buried until the next
night ; that it was taken through the buttery, down the
stairway, and that it was buried ten feet below the surface
of the ground. It was also ascertained that he was murdered
for his money, by raps affirmative.

" How much was it one hundred ? " No rap. " Was
it two hundred ? " etc., and when he mentioned five hun-
dred the raps replied in the affirmative.

Many called in who were fishing in the*c*reek, and all
heard the same questions and answers. Many remained
in the house all night. I and my children left the house.
64

THE HTDESFILLE EPISODE

My husband remained in the house with Mr. Redfield
all night. On the next Saturday the house was filled to
overflowing. There were no sounds heard during day,
but they commenced again in the evening. It was said
that there were over three hundred persons present at the
time. On Sunday morning the noises were heard through-
out the day by all who came to the house.

On Saturday night, April ist, they commenced digging
in the cellar ; they dug until they came to water, and then
gave it up. The noise was not heard on Sunday evening
nor during the night. Stephen B. Smith and wife (my
daughter Marie), and my son David S. Fox and wife, slept
in the room this night.

I have heard nothing since that time until yesterday.
In the forenoon of yesterday there were several questions
answered in the usual way by rapping. I have heard the
noise several times to-day.

I am not a believer in haunted houses or supernatural
appearances. I am very sorry that there has been so much
excitement about it. It has been a great deal of trouble
to us. It was our misfortune to live here at this time ;
but I am willing and anxious that the truth should be known,
and that a true statement should be made. I cannot account
for these noises ; all that I know is that they have been heard
repeatedly, as I have stated. I have heard this rapping
again this (Tuesday) morning, April 4. My children also
heard it.

I certify that the foregoing statement has been read to
me, and that the same is true ; and that I should be willing
to take my oath that it is so, if necessary."

(Signed] MARGARET Fox.

April u, 1848.

Statement by John D. Fox

I have heard the above statement of my wife, Margaret
Fox, read, and hereby certify that the same is true in

65

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

all its particulars. I heard the same rappings which she
has spoken of, in answer to the questions, as stated by her.
There have been a great many questions besides those
asked, and answered in the same way. Some have been
asked a great many times, and they have always received
the same answers. There has never been any contradic-
tion whatever.

I do not know of any way to account for those noises,
as being caused by any natural means. We have searched
every nook and corner in and about the house, at different
times, to ascertain, if possible, whether anything or any-
body was secreted there that could make the noise, and
have not been able to find anything which would or could
explain the mystery. It has caused a great deal of trouble
and anxiety.

Hundreds have visited the house, so that it is impossible
for us to attend to our daily occupations ; and I hope that>
whether caused by natural or supernatural means, it will
be ascertained soon. The digging in the cellar will be
resumed as soon as the water settles, and then it can be
ascertained whether there are any indications of a body
ever having been buried there ; and if there are, I shall
have no doubt but that it is of supernatural origin.

(Signed) JOHN D, Fox,
April n, 1848.

The neighbours had formed themselves into a
committee of investigation, which for sanity and
efficiency might be a lesson to many subsequent re-
searchers. They did not begin by imposing their
own conditions, but they started without prejudice to
record the facts exactly as they found them. Not
only did they collect and record the impressions of
everyone concerned, but they actually had the evi-

66

THE HYDESVILLE EPISODE

dencc in printed form within a month of the occur-
rence. The author has in vain attempted to get an
original copy of the pamphlet, " A Report of the
Mysterious Noises heard in the House of Mr. John D.
Fox," published at Canandaigua, New York, .but he
has been presented with a facsimile of the original,
and it is his considered opinion that the fact of human
survival and power of communication was definitely
proved to any mind capable of weighing evidence
from the day of the appearance of that document.

The statement made by Mr. Duesler, chief of the
committee, gives important testimony to the occur-
rence of the noises and jars in the absence of the Fox
girls from the house, and disposes once and for ever
of all suspicion of their complicity in these events.
Mrs. Fox, as we have seen, referring to the night of
Friday, March 31, said: " I and my children left the
house." Part of Mr. Duesler 's statement reads:

I live within a few rods of the house in which these
sounds have been heard. The first I heard anything
about them was a week ago last Friday evening (March
3ist). Mrs. Redfield came over to my house to get my
wife to go over to Mrs. Fox's. Mrs. R. appeared to be
very much agitated. My wife wanted me to go over with
them, and I accordingly went. . . . This was about
nine o'clock in the evening. There were some twelve or
fourteen persons present when I left them. Some were so
frightened that they did not want to go into the room.
I went into the room and sat down on the bed. Mr. Fox
asked a question and I heard the rapping, which they had
spoken of, distinctly. I felt the bedstead jar when the
sounds were produced.

67

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

The Hon. Robert Dale Owen,* a member of the
United States Congress, and formerly American
Minister to Naples, supplies a few additional particu-
lars in his narrative, written after conversations with
Mrs. Fox and her daughters, Margaret and Catharine.
Describing the night of March 31, 1848, he says
("Footfalls, etc.," p. 287):

The parents had had the children's beds removed into
their bedroom, and strictly enjoined them not to talk of
noises even if they heard them. But scarcely had the mother
seen them safely in bed and was retiring to rest herself
when the children cried out, " Here they are again ! "
The mother chid them, and lay down. Thereupon the
noises became louder and more startling. The children
sat up in bed. Mrs. Fox called in her husband. The night
being windy, it suggested itself to him that it might be the
rattling of the sashes. He tried several, shaking them to
see if they were loose. Kate, the youngest girl, happened to
remark that as often as her father shook a window-sash
the noises seemed to reply. Being a lively child, and in a
measure accustomed to what was going on, she turned to
where the noise was, snapped her fingers, and called out,
" Here, old Splitfoot, do as I do." The knocking instantly
responded. That was the very commencement. Who can
tell where the end will be ? ... Mr. Mompesson, in
bed with his little daughter (about Kate's age) whom the
sound seemed chiefly to follow, " observed that it would
exactly answer, in drumming, anything that was beaten or
called for." But his curiosity led him no further. Not
so Kate Fox. She tried, by silently bringing together her
thumb and forefinger, whether she could still obtain a
response. Yes 1 It could see, then, as well as hear 1

Author of " Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World " (1860),
and " The Debatable Land " (1871).
68

THE HTDESFILLE EPISODE

She called her mother. " Only look, mother ! " she said,
bringing together her finger and thumb as before. And as
often as she repeated the noiseless motion, just so often
responded the raps.

In the summer of 1 848 Mr. David Fox, with the
assistance of Mr. Henry Bush, Mr. Lyman Granger,
of Rochester, and others, resumed digging in the
cellar. At a depth of five feet they found a plank,
and further digging disclosed charcoal and quicklime,
and finally human hair and bones, which were pro-
nounced by expert medical testimony to belong to a
human skeleton. It was not until fifty-six years later
that a further discovery was made which proved
beyond all doubt that someone had really been buried
in the cellar of the Fox house.

This statement appeared in the Boston Journal (a
non-Spiritualistic paper) of November 23, 1904, and
runs as follows:

Rochester, N.Y., Nov. 22nd, 1904 : The skeleton
of the man supposed to have caused the rappings first heard
by the Fox sisters in 1 848 has been found in the walls of
the house occupied by the sisters, and clears them from the
only shadow of doubt held concerning their sincerity in
the discovery of spirit communication.

The Fox sisters declared they learned to communicate
with the spirit of a man, and that he told them he had been
murdered and buried in the cellar. Repeated excavations
failed to locate the body and thus give proof positive of
their story.

The discovery was made by school-children playing in
the cellar of the building in Hydesville known as the
" Spook House," where the Fox sisters heard the wonderful
69

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

rappings. William H. Hyde, a reputable citizen of Clyde,
who owns the house, made an investigation and found an
almost entire human skeleton between the earth and crum-
bling cellar walls, undoubtedly that of the wandering pedlar
who, it was claimed, was murdered in the east room of
the house, and whose body was hidden in the cellar.

Mr. Hyde has notified relatives of the Fox sisters, and
the notice of the discovery will be sent to the National
Order of Spiritualists, many of whom remember having
made pilgrimage to the " Spook House," as it is commonly
called. The finding of the bones practically corroborates
the sworn statement made by Margaret Fox, April n,
1848.

There was discovered a pedlar's tin box as well as
the bones, and this box is now preserved at Lilydale,
the central country head-quarters of the American
Spiritualists, to which also the old Hydesville house
has been transported.

These discoveries settle the question for ever and
prove conclusively that there was a crime committed
in the house, and that this crime was indicated by
psychic means. When one examines the result of the
two diggings one can reconstruct the circumstances.
It is clear that in the first instance the body was buried
with quicklime in the centre of the cellar. Later the
criminal was alarmed by the fact that this place was
too open to suspicion and he had dug up the body,
or the main part of it, and reburied it under the wall
where it would be more out of the way. The work
had been done so hurriedly, however, or in such
imperfect light, that some clear traces were left, as
has been seen, of the original grave.
70

THE HYDESVILLE EPISODE

Was there independent evidence of such a crime ?
In order to find it we have to turn to the deposition
of Lucretia Pulver, who served as help during the
tenancy of Mr. and Mrs. Bell, who occupied the
house four years before. She describes how a pedlar
came to the house and how he stayed the night
there with his wares. Her employers told her that
she might go home that night.

I wanted to buy some things off the pedlar but had
no money with me, and he said he would call at our house
next morning and sell them to me. I never saw him after
this. About three days after this they sent for me to come
back. I accordingly came back. . . .

I should think this pedlar of whom I have spoken was
about thirty years of age. I heard him conversing with
Mrs. Bell about his family. Mrs. Bell told me that he
was an old acquaintance of theirs that she had seen him
several times before. One evening, about a week after this,
Mrs. Bell sent me down to the cellar to shut the outer door.
" In going across the cellar I fell down near the centre of it.
It appeared to be uneven and loose in that part. After
I got upstairs, Mrs. Bell asked me what I screamed for
and I told her. She laughed at me being frightened, and
said it was only where the rats had been at work in the
ground. A few days after this, Mr. Bell carried a lot of dirt
into the cellar just at night and was at work there some time.
Mrs. Bell told me that he was filling up the rat-holes.

A short time after this Mrs. Bell gave me a thimble
which she said she had bought of this pedlar. About three
months after this I visited her and she said the pedlar had
been there again and she showed me another thimble which
she said she had bought from him. She showed me some
other things which she said she had bought from him.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

It is worth noting that a Mrs. Lape in 1 847 had
claimed to have actually seen an apparition in the
house, and that this vision was of a middle-sized man
who wore grey pants, a black frock-coat and black
cap. Lucretia Pulver deposed that the pedlar in life
wore a black frock-coat and light-coloured pants.

On the other hand, it is only fair to add that the
Mr. Bell who occupied the house at that time was not
a man of notorious character, and one would willingly
concede that an accusation founded entirely upon
psychic evidence would be an unfair and intolerable
thing. It is very different, however, when the proofs
of a crime have actually been discovered, and the
evidence then centres merely upon which tenant was
in possession at that particular time. The deposition
of Lucretia Pulver assumes vital importance in its
bearing upon this matter.

There are one or two points about the case which
would bear discussion. One is that a man with so
remarkable a name as Charles B. Rosma should never
have been traced, considering all the publicity which
the case acquired. This would certainly at the time
have appeared a formidable objection, but with our
fuller knowledge we appreciate how very difficult it
is to get names correctly across. A name apparently
is a purely conventional thing, and as such very
different from an idea. Every practising Spiritualist
has received messages which were correct coupled
with names which were mistaken. It is possible that
the real name was Ross, or possibly Rosmer, and that
this error prevented identification. Again, it is curious
72

THE HTDESFILLE EPISODE

that he should not have known that his body had been
moved from the centre of the cellar to the wall, where
it was eventually found. We can only record the fact
without attempting to explain it.

Again, granting that the young girls were the
mediums and that the power was drawn from them,
how came the phenomena when they had actually
been removed from the house ? To this one can only
answer that though the future was to show that the
power did actually emanate from these girls, none the
less it seemed to have permeated the house and to
have been at the disposal of the manifesting power
for a time at least when the girls were not present.

The Fox family were seriously troubled by the
disturbances Mrs. Fox's hair turned white in a week
and as it became apparent that these were associated
with the two young daughters, these were sent from
home. But in the house of her brother, David Fox,
where Margaret went, and in that of her sister Leah,
whose married name was Mrs. Fish, at Rochester,
where Catharine was staying, the same sounds were
heard. Every effort was made to conceal these mani-
festations from the public, but they soon became
known. Mrs. Fish, who was a teacher of music, was
unable to continue her profession, and hundreds of
people flocked to her house to witness the new marvels.
It should be stated that either this power was con-
tagious, or else it was descending upon many in-
dividuals independently from some common source.
Thus Mrs. Leah Fish, the elder sister, received it,
though in a less degree than Kate or Margaret. But

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

it was no longer confined to the Fox family. It was
like some psychic cloud descending from on high and
showing itself on those persons who were susceptible.
Similar sounds were heard in the home of Rev. A. H.
Jervis, a Methodist minister, living in Rochester.
Strong physical phenomena also began in the family
of Deacon Hale, of Greece, a town close to Rochester.
A little later Mrs. Sarah A. Tamlin and Mrs. Bene-
dict, of Auburn, developed remarkable mediumship.
Mr. Capron, the first historian of the movement,
describes Mrs. Tamlin as one of the most reliable
mediums he had ever met, and says that though
the sounds occurring in her presence were not so loud
as those with the Fox family, the messages were
equally trustworthy.

It speedily became evident, then, that these unseen
forces were no longer attached to any building, but
that they had transferred themselves to the girls. In
vain the family prayed with their Methodist friends
that relief would come. In vain also were exorcisms
performed by the clergy of various creeds. Beyond
joining with loud raps in the Amens, the unseen
presences took no notice of these religious exercises.

The danger of blindly following alleged spirit
guidance was clearly shown some months later in
the neighbouring town of Rochester, where a man
disappeared under suspicious circumstances. An
enthusiastic Spiritualist had messages by raps which
announced a murder. The canal was dragged and the
wife of the missing man was actually ordered to enter
the canal, which nearly cost her her life. Some
74

THE HTDES7ILLE EPISODE

months later the absentee returned, having fled to
Canada to avoid a writ for debt. This, as may well
be imagined, was a blow to the young cult. The
public did not then understand what_even now is so
little understood, that death causes no change in the
human spirit, that mischievous and humorous entities
abound, and that the inquirer must use his own
instincts and his own common sense at every turn.
" Try the spirits that ye may know them." In the
same year, in the same district, the truth of this new
philosophy upon the one side, and its limitations and
dangers on the other, were most clearly set forth.
These dangers are with us still. The silly man, the
arrogant inflated man, the cocksure man, is always a
safe butt. Every observer has had some trick played
upon him. The author has himself had his faith
sorely shaken by deception until some compensating
proof has come along to assure him that it was only
a lesson which he had received, and that it was no
more fiendish or even remarkable that disembodied
intelligences should be hoaxers than that the same
intelligence inside a human body should find amuse-
ment in the same foolish way.

The whole course of the movement had now
widened and taken a more important turn. It was no
longer a murdered man calling for justice. The
pedlar seemed to have been used as a pioneer, and now
that he had found the opening and the method, a
myriad of Intelligences were swarming at his back.
Isaac Post had instituted the method of spelling by
raps, and messages were pouring through. Accord-

75

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

ing to these the whole system had been devised by the
contrivance of a band of thinkers and inventors upon
the spirit plane, foremost among whom was Ben-
jamin Franklin, whose eager mind and electrical
knowledge in earth life might well qualify him for
such a venture. Whether this claim was true or not,
it is a fact that Rosma dropped out of the picture at
this stage, and that the intelligent knockings pur-
ported to be from the deceased friends of those in-
quirers who were prepared to take a serious interest
in the matter and to gather in reverent mood to
receive the messages. That they still lived and still
loved was the constant message from the beyond,
accompanied by many material tests, which confirmed
the wavering faith of the new adherents of the move-
ment. When asked for their methods of working and
the laws which governed them, the answers were from
the beginning exactly what they are now : that it was
a matter concerned with human and spirit magnetism;
that some who were richly endowed with this physical
property were mediums; that this endowment was not
necessarily allied to morality or intelligence ; and that
the condition of harmony was especially necessary to
secure good results. In seventy odd years we have
learned very little more; and after all these years the
primary law of harmony is invariably broken at the
so-called test stances, the members of which imagine
that they have disproved the philosophy when they
obtain negative or disordered results, whereas they
have actually confirmed it.

In one of the early communications the Fox sisters

THE HTDES7ILLE EPISODE

were assured that " these manifestations would not be
confined to them, but would go all over the world."
This prophecy was soon in a fair way to be fulfilled,
for these new powers and further developments of
them, which included the discerning and hearing of
spirits and the movement of objects without contact,
appeared in many circles which were independent of
the Fox family. In an incredibly short space of time
the movement, with many eccentricities and phases of
fanaticism, had swept over the Northern and Eastern
States of the Union, always retaining that solid core
of actual tangible fact, which might be occasionally
simulated by impostors, but always reasserted itself to
the serious investigator who could shake himself free
from preconceived prejudice. Disregarding for the
moment these wider developments, let us continue the
story of the original circles at Rochester.

The spirit messages had urged upon the small
band of pioneers a public demonstration of their
powers in an open meeting at Rochester a proposi-
tion which was naturally appalling to two shy country
girls and to their friends. So incensed were the dis-
carnate Guides by the opposition of their earthly
agents that they threatened to suspend the whole
movement for a generation, and did actually desert
them completely for some weeks. At the end of that
time communication was restored and the believers,
chastened by this interval of thought, put themselves
unreservedly into the hands of the outside forces,
promising that they would dare all in the cause. It
was no light matter. A few of the clergy, notably the

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

Methodist minister, the Rev. A. H. Jervis, rallied to
their aid, but the majority thundered from their pul-
pits against them, and the mob eagerly joined in the
cowardly sport of heretic-baiting. On November 14,
1849, the Spiritualists held their first meeting at the
Corinthian Hall, the largest available in Rochester.
The audience, to its credit, listened with attention to
the exposition of facts from Mr. Capron, of Auburn,
the principal speaker. A committee of five repre-
sentative citizens was then selected to examine into
the matter and to report upon the following evening,
when the meeting would reassemble. So certain was
it that this report would be unfavourable that the
Rochester Democrat is stated to have had its lead-
ing article prepared, with the head-line: "Entire
Exposure of the Rapping Humbug." The result,
however, caused the editor to hold his hand. The
committee reported that the raps were undoubted
facts, though the information was not entirely correct,
that is, the answers to questions were *' not alto-
gether right nor altogether wrong." They added
that these raps came on walls and doors some
distance from the girls, causing a sensible vibration.
" They entirely failed to find any means by which
it could be done."

This report was received with disapproval by the
audience, and a second committee from among the
dissentients was formed. This investigation was con-
ducted in the office of a lawyer. Kate, for some reason,
was away, and only Mrs. Fish and Margaret were
present. None the less, the sounds continued as

THE HTDES7ILLE EPISODE

before, though a Dr. Langworthy was introduced to
test the possibility of ventriloquism. The final report
was that " the sounds were heard, and their thorough
investigation had conclusively shown them to be pro-
duced neither by machinery nor ventriloquism, though
what the agent is they were unable to determine."

Again the audience turned down the report of
their own committee, and again a deputation was
chosen from among the most extreme opponents, one
of whom vowed that if he could not find out the trick
he would throw himself over the falls of the Genesee
River. Their examination was thorough to the length
of brutality, and a committee of ladies was associated
with it. The latter stripped the frightened girls, who
wept bitterly under their afflictions. Their dresses
were then tied tightly round their ankles and they
were placed upon glass and other insulators. The
committee was forced to report, " when they were
standing on pillows with a handkerchief tied round
the bottom of their dresses, tight to the ankles, we all
heard the rapping on the wall and floor distinctly."
The committee further testified that their questions,
some of them mental, had been answered correctly.

So long as the public looked upon the movement
as a sort of joke it was prepared to be tolerantly
amused, but when these successive reports put the
matter in a more serious light, a wave of blackguard-
ism swept over the town, which reached such a pitch
that Mr. Willetts, a gallant Quaker, was compelled at
the fourth public meeting to declare that " the mob
of ruffians who designed to lynch the girls should do

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

so, if they attempted it, over his dead body." There
was a disgraceful riot, the young women were
smuggled out by a back door, and reason and justice
were for the moment clouded over by force and folly.
Then, as now, the minds of the average men of the
world were so crammed with the things that do not
matter that they had no space for the things that do
matter. But Fate is never in a hurry, and the move-
ment went on. Many accepted the findings of the
successive committees as being final, and indeed, it is
difficult to see how the alleged facts could have been
more severely tested. At the same time, this strong,
new, fermenting wine began to burst some of the old
bottles into which it was poured to the excusable
disgust of the public.

The many discreet, serious and religious circles
were for a season almost obscured by swollen-headed
ranters who imagined themselves to be in touch with
every high entity from the Apostles downwards, some
even claiming the direct afflatus of the Holy Ghost
and emitting messages which were only saved from
being blasphemous by their crudity and absurdity.
One community of these fanatics, who called them-
selves the Apostolic Circle of Mountain Cove, particu-
larly distinguished themselves by their extreme claims
and furnished good material for the enemies of the
new dispensation. The great body of Spiritualists
turned away in disapproval from such exaggerations,
but were unable to prevent them. Many well-
attested supernormal phenomena came to support the
failing spirits of those who were distressed by the

THE HYDESVILLE EPISODE

excesses of the fanatics. On one occasion, which is
particularly convincing and well-reported, two bodies
of investigators in separate rooms, at Rochester, on
February 20, 1850, received the same message simul-
taneously from some central force which called itself
Benjamin Franklin. This double message was :
" There will be great changes in the nineteenth cen-
tury. Things that now look dark and mysterious to
you will be laid plain before your sight. Mysteries
are going to be revealed. The world will be en-
lightened." It must be admitted that, up to now, the
prophecy has been only partially fulfilled, and it may
at the same time be conceded that, with some start-
ling exceptions, the forecasts of the spirit people
have not been remarkable for accuracy, especially
where the element of time is concerned.

The question has often been asked: "What was
the purpose of so strange a movement at this particular
time, granting that it is all that it claims to be ? **
Governor Tallmadge, a United States senator of
repute, was one of the early converts to the new cult,
and he has left it upon record that he asked this ques-
tion upon two separate occasions in two different years
from different mediums. The answer in each case
was almost identical. The first said : " It is to draw
mankind together in harmony, and to convince
sceptics of the immortality of the soul." The second
said : " To unite mankind and to convince sceptical
minds of the immortality of the soul." Surely this is
no ignoble ambition and does not justify those narrow
and bitter attacks from ministers and the less progres-

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

sive of their flocks from which Spiritualists have up to
the present day had to suffer. The first half of the
definition is particularly important, for it is possible
that one of the ultimate results of this movement
will be to unite religion upon a common basis so
strong, and, indeed, so self-sufficient, that the quibbles
which separate the Churches of to-day will be seen
in their true proportions and will be swept away or
disregarded. One could even hope that such a move-
ment might spread beyond the bounds of Christianity
and throw down some of the barriers which stand
between great sections of the human race.

Attempts to expose the phenomena were made
from time to time. In February, 1851, Dr. Austin
Flint, Dr. Charles A. Lee, and Dr. C. B. Coventry of
the University of Buffalo, published a statement
showing to their own satisfaction that the sounds
occurring in the presence of the Fox sisters were
caused by the snapping of knee-joints. It called
forth a characteristic reply in the Press from Mrs.
Fish and Margaret Fox, addressed to the three
doctors:

As we do not feel willing to rest under the imputation
of being impostors, we are very willing to undergo a proper
and decent examination, provided we can select three male
and three female friends who shall be present on the occa-
sion. We can assure the public that there is no one more
anxious than ourselves to discover the origin of these mys-
terious manifestations. If they can be explained on
" anatomical " or " physiological " principles, it is due to
the world that the investigation be made, and that the

* Capron : " Modern Spiritualism, &c.," pp. 310-313.

THE HYDES7ILLE EPISODE

" humbug " be exposed. As there seems to be much
interest manifested by the public on that subject, we would
suggest that as early an investigation as is convenient would
be acceptable to the undersigned.

ANN L. FISH.

MARGARETTA Fox.

The investigation was held, but the results were
negative. In an appended note to the doctors' report
in the New York Tribune^ the editor (Horace Greeley)
observes:

The doctors, as has already appeared in our columns,
commenced with the assumption that the origin of the
" rapping " sounds mustbe physical, and their primary cause
the volition of the ladies aforesaid in short, that these
ladies were " The Rochester impostors." They appear,
therefore, in the above statement, as the prosecutors of an
impeachment, and ought to have selected other persons as
judges and reporters of the trial. ... It is quite probable
that we shall have another version of the matter.

Much testimony in support of the Fox sisters was
quickly forthcoming, and the only effect of the pro-
fessors' " exposure " was to redouble the public
interest in the manifestations.

There was also the alleged confession of Mrs.
Norman Culver, who deposed, on April 17, 1851,
that Catharine Fox had revealed to her the whole
secret of how the raps were produced. It was an
entire fabrication, and Mr. Capron published a crush-
ing answer, showing that on the date when Catharine
Fox was supposed to have made the confession to Mrs.
Culver, she was residing at his house seventy miles
distant.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Mrs. Fox and her three daughters began public
sittings in New York in the spring of 1850, at Bar-
num's Hotel, and they attracted many curious visitors.
The Press was almost unanimous in denunciation of
them. A brilliant exception to this was found in
Horace Greeley, already quoted, who wrote an appre-
ciative article in his paper under his own initials. A
portion of this will be found in the Appendix.

After a return to Rochester, the Fox family made
a tour of the Western States, and then paid a second
visit to New York, when the same intense public
interest was displayed. They had obeyed the spirits'
mandate to proclaim these truths to the world, and the
new era that had been announced was now ushered
in. When one reads the detailed accounts of some of
these American sittings, and considers the brain power
of the sitters, it is amazing to think that people, blinded
by prejudice, should be so credulous as to imagine
that it was all the result of deception. At that time
was shown moral courage which has been conspicu-
ously lacking since the reactionary forces in science and
in religion combined to stifle the new knowledge and to
make it dangerous for its professors. Thus in a single
sitting in New York in 1850 we find that there were
gathered round the table the Rev. Dr. Griswold,
Fenimore Cooper the novelist, Bancroft the historian,
Rev. Dr. Hawks, Dr. J. W. Francis, Dr. Marcy,
Willis the Quaker poet, Bryant the poet, Bigelow of
the Evening Post, and General Lyman. All of these
were satisfied as to the facts, and the account winds up:
" The manners and bearing of the ladies " (i.e. the

THE HTDESVILLE EPISODE

three Fox sisters) " are such as to create a preposses-
sion in their favour." The world since then has dug
up much coal and iron; it has erected great structures
and it has invented terrible engines of war, but can
we say that it has advanced in spiritual knowledge or
reverence for the unseen ? Under the guidance of
materialism the wrong path has been followed, and
it becomes increasingly clear that the people must
return or perish.

CHAPTER V

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

FOR the sake of continuity the subsequent history
of the Fox sisters will now be given after the
events at Hydesville. It is a remarkable, and to
Spiritualists a painful, story, but it bears its own lesson
and should be faithfully recorded. When men have
an honest and whole-hearted aspiration for truth there
is no development which can ever leave them abashed
or find no place in their scheme.

For some years the two younger sisters, Kate and
Margaret, gave stances at New York and other places,
successfully meeting every test which was applied to
them. Horace Greeley, afterwards a candidate for
the United States presidency, was, as already shown,
deeply interested in them and convinced of their
entire honesty. He is said to have furnished the funds
by which the younger girl completed her very imper-
fect education.

During these years of public mediumship, when
the girls were all the rage among those who had no
conception of the religious significance of this new
revelation, and who concerned themselves with it
purely in the hope of worldly advantage, the sisters
exposed themselves to the enervating influences of
promiscuous stances in a way which no earnest

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

Spiritualist could justify. The dangers of such prac-
tices were not then so clearly realized as now, nor had
it occurred to people that it is unlikely that high
spirits would descend to earth in order to advise as to
the state of railway stocks or the issue of love affairs.
The ignorance was universal, and there was no wise
mentor at the elbow of these poor pioneers to point
the higher and the safer path. Worst of all, their
jaded energies were renewed by the offer of wine at
a time when one at least of them was hardly more
than a child. It is said that there was some family
predisposition towards alcoholism, but even without
such a taint their whole procedure and mode of
life were rash to the last degree. Against their
moral character there has never been a breath of
suspicion, but they had taken a road which leads to
degeneration of mind and character, though it was
many years before the more serious effects were
manifest.

Some idea of the pressure upon the Fox girls at
this time may be gathered from Mrs. Hardinge
Britten's * description from her own observation. She
talks of " pausing on the first floor to hear poor patient
Kate Fox, in the midst of a captious, grumbling crowd
of investigators, repeating hour after hour the letters
of the alphabet, while the no less poor, patient spirits
rapped out names, ages and dates to suit all comers."
Can one wonder that the girls, with vitality sapped,
the beautiful, watchful influence of the mother re-
moved, and harassed by enemies, succumbed to a

* "Autobiography," p. 40.
87

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

gradually increasing temptation in the direction of
stimulants ?

A remarkably clear light is thrown upon Margaret
at this period in that curious booklet, "The Love
Letters of Dr. Elisha Kane." It was in 1852 that
Dr. Kane, afterwards the famous Arctic explorer, met
Margaret Fox, who was a beautiful and attractive
girl. To her Kane wrote those love letters which
record one of the most curious courtships in literature.
Elisha Kane, as his first name might imply, was a man
of Puritan extraction, and Puritans, with their belief
that the Bible represents the absolutely final word in
spiritual inspiration and that they understand what
that last word means, are instinctively antagonistic to a
new cult which professes to show that new sources
and new interpretations are still available.

He was also a doctor of medicine, and the medical
profession is at the same time the most noble and the
most cynically incredulous in the world. From the
first Kane made up his mind that the young girl was
involved in fraud, and formed the theory that her
elder sister Leah was, for purposes of gain, exploiting
the fraud. The fact that Leah shortly afterwards
married a wealthy man named Underbill, a Wall
Street insurance magnate, does not appear to have
modified Kane's views as to her greed for illicit
earnings. The doctor formed a close friendship with
Margaret, put her under his own aunt for purposes
of education whilst he was away in the Arctic, and
finally married her under the curious Gretna Green
kind of marriage law which seems to have prevailed

88

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

at the time. Shortly afterwards he died (in 1857),
and the widow, now calling herself Mrs. Fox-Kane,
forswore all phenomena for a time, and was received
into the Roman Catholic Church.

In these letters Kane continually reproaches Mar-
garet with living in deceit and hypocrisy. We have
very few of her letters, so that we do not know how
far she defended herself. The compiler of the book,
though a non-Spiritualist, says: " Poor girl, with her
simplicity, ingenuousness and timidity, she could not,
had she been so inclined, have practised the slightest
deception with any chance of success." This testi-
mony is valuable, as the writer was clearly intimately
acquainted with everyone concerned. Kane himself,
writing to the younger sister Kate, says: " Take my
advice and never talk of the spirits either to friends
or strangers. You know that with all my intimacy
with Maggie after a whole month's trial I cQuld
make nothing of them. Therefore they are a great
mystery."

Considering their close relations, and that Mar-
garet clearly gave Kane every demonstration of her
powers, it is inconceivable that a trained medical man
would have to admit after a month that he could make
nothing of it, if it were indeed a mere cracking of
a joint. One can find no evidence for fraud in these
letters, but one does find ample proof that these two
young girls, Margaret and Kate, had not the least
idea of the religious implications involved in these
powers, or of the grave responsibilities of medium-
ship, and that they misused their gift in the direction

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

of giving worldly advice, receiving promiscuous
sitters, and answering comic or frivolous questions.
If in such circumstances both their powers and their
character were to deteriorate, it would not surprise
any experienced Spiritualist. They deserved no
better, though their age and ignorance furnished an
excuse.

To realize their position one has to remember that
they were little more than children, poorly educated,
and quite ignorant of the philosophy of the subject.
When a man like Dr. Kane assured Margaret that it
was very wrong, he was only saying what was dinned
into her ears from every quarter, including half the
pulpits of New York. Probably she had an uneasy
feeling that it was wrong, without in the least knowing
why, and this may account for the fact that she does
not seem to remonstrate with him for his suspicions.
Indeed, we may admit that au jond Kane was right,
and that the proceedings were in some ways unjusti-
fiable. At that time they were very unvenal them-
selves, and had they used their gift, as D. D. Home
used his, with no relation to worldly things, and for
the purpose only of proving immortality and consoling
the afflicted, then, indeed, they would have been above
criticism. He was wrong in doubting their gift, but
right in looking askance at some examples of their
use of it.

In some ways Kane's position is hopelessly illogical.
He was on most intimate and affectionate terms with
the mother and the two girls, although if words have
any meaning he thought them to be swindlers living

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

on the credulity of the public. " Kiss Katie for me,"
he says, and he continually sends love to the mother.

Already, young as they were, he had a glimpse of
the alcoholic danger to which they were exposed by
late hours and promiscuous company. " Tell Katie
to drink no champagne, and do you follow the same
advice," said he. It was sound counsel, and it would
have been well for themselves and for the movement
if they had both followed it; but again we must
remember their inexperienced youth and the constant
temptations.

Kane was a curious blend of the hero and the prig.
Spirit-rapping, unfortified by any of the religious or
scientific sanctions which came later, was a low-down
thing, a superstition of the illiterate, and was he, a
man of repute, to marry a spirit-rapper ? He vacil-
lated over it in an extraordinary way, beginning a
letter with claims to be her brother, and ending by
reminding her of the warmth of his kisses. " Now
that you have given me your heart, I will be a brother
to you," he says. He had a vein of real superstition
running through him which was far below the cre-
dulity which he ascribed to others. He frequently
alludes to the fact that by raising his right hand he
had powers of divination and that he had learned it
" from a conjurer in the Indies." Occasionally he is
a snob as well as a prig. " At the very dinner-table
of the President I thought of you "; and again: " You
could never lift yourself up to my thoughts and my
objects. I could never bring myself down to yours."
As a matter of fact, the few extracts given from her
9 1

THE- HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

letters show an intelligent and sympathetic mind. On
at least one occasion we find Kane suggesting deceit
to her, and she combating the idea.

There are four fixed points which can be estab-
lished by the letters:

1. That Kane thought in a vague way that there

was trickery ;

2. That in the years of their close intimacy she

never admitted it;

3. That he could not even suggest in what the

trickery lay;

4. That she did use her powers in a way which

serious Spiritualists would deplore.

She really knew no more of the nature of these
forces than those around her did. The editor says:
" She had always averred that she never fully believed
the rappings to be the work of spirits, but imagined
some occult laws of nature were concerned." This
was her attitude later in life, for on her professional
card she printed that people must judge the nature of
the powers for themselves.

It is natural that those who speak of the danger of
mediumship, and especially of physical mediumship,
should point to the Fox sisters as an example. But
their case must not be exaggerated. In the year 1871,
after more than twenty years of this exhausting work,
we find them still receiving the enthusiastic support
and admiration of many leading men and women of
the day. It was only after forty years of public ser-
vice that adverse conditions were manifested in their

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

lives, and therefore, without in any way glossing over
what is evil, we can fairly claim that their record
hardly justifies those who allude to mediumship as a
soul-destroying profession.

It was in this yeari 871 that Kate Fox's visit
to England was brought about through the generosity
of Mr, Charles F. Livermore, a prominent banker of
New York, in gratitude for the consolation he had
received from her wonderful powers, and to advance
the cause of Spiritualism. He provided for all her
needs, and thus removed any necessity for her to give
professional sittings. He also arranged for her to be
accompanied by a congenial woman companion.

In a letter to Mr. Benjamin Coleman, a well-
known worker in the Spiritualist movement, Mr.
Livermore says:

Miss Fox, taken all in all, is no doubt the most won-
derful living medium. Her character is irreproachable
and pure. I have received so much through her powers
of mediumship during the past ten years which is solacing,
instructive and astounding, that I feel greatly indebted to
her, and desire to have her taken good care of while absent
from her home and friends.

His further remarks have some bearing possibly
on the later sad events of her life:

That you may the more thoroughly understand her
idiosyncrasies, permit me to explain that she is a sensitive
of the highest order and of childlike simplicity ; she feels
keenly the atmospheres of everyone with whom she is
brought in contact, and to that degree that at times she
becomes exceedingly nervous and apparently capricious.

* The Spiritual Magazine, 1871, pp. 525-6.
93

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

For this reason I have advised her not to sit in dark
seances, that she may avoid the irritation arising from the
suspicion of sceptics, mere curiosity-mongers, and lovers
of the marvellous.

The perfection of the manifestations to be obtained
through her depends upon her surroundings, and in
proportion as she is in rapport or sympathy with you does
she seem receptive of spiritual power. The communica-
tions through her are very remarkable, and have come to me
frequently from my wife (Estelle), in perfect idiomatic
French, and sometimes in Spanish and Italian, whilst she
herself is not acquainted with any of these languages.
You will understand all this, but these explanations may be
necessary for others. As I have said, she "will not give
seances as a professional medium, but I hope she will do all
the good she can in furtherance of the great truth, in a quiet
way, while she remains in England.

Mr. Coleman, who had a sitting with her in
New York, says that he received one of the most
striking evidences of spirit identity that had ever
occurred to him in his experience of seventeen years.
Mr. Cromwell F. Varley, the electrician who laid the
Atlantic cable, in his evidence before the London
Dialectical Society in 1869, spoke of interesting elec-
trical experiments he made with this medium.

The visit of Kate Fox to England was evidently
regarded as a mission, for we find Mr. Coleman
advising her to choose only those sitters who are not
afraid to have their names published in confirmation
of the facts they have witnessed. This course seems
to have been adopted to some extent, for there is
preserved a fair amount of testimony to her powers
from, among others, Professor William Crooks, Mr.
94

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

S. C. Hall, Mr. W. H. Harrison (editor of The Spiritu-
alist), Miss Rosamund Dale Owen (who afterwards
married Laurence Oliphant), and the Rev. John Page
Hopps.

The new-comer began to hold sittings soon after
her arrival. At one of the first of these, on November
24, 1871, a representative of The Times was present,
and he published a detailed account of the stance,
which was held jointly with D. D. Home, a close
friend of the medium. This appeared in an article
entitled " Spiritualism and Science," occupying three
and a half columns of leading type. The Times Com-
missioner speaks of Miss Fox taking him to the door
of the room and inviting him to stand by her and to
hold her hands, which he did, " when loud thumps
seemed to come from the panels, as if done with the
fist. These were repeated at our request any number
of times." He mentioned that he tried every test
that he could think of, that Miss Fox and Mr. Home
gave every opportunity for examination, and that
their feet and hands were held.

In the course of a leading article on the above
report and the correspondence that came from it, The
Times (January 6, 1873) declared that there was no
case for scientific inquiry:

Many sensible readers, we fear, will think we owe them
an apology for opening our columns to a controversy on
such a subject as Spiritualism and thus treating as an open
or debatable question what should rather be dismissed at
once as either an imposture or a delusion. But even an
imposture may call for unmasking, and popular delusions
95

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

howeverTabsurd, are often too important to be neglected by
the wiser portion of mankind. ... Is there, in reality,
anything, as lawyers would say, to go to a jury with ?
Well, on the one hand, we have abundance of alleged ex-
perience which can hardly be called evidence, and a few
depositions of a more notable and impressive character.
On the other hand, we have many accounts of convicted
impostors, and many authentic reports of precisely such dis-
appointments or discoveries as we should be led to expect.

On December 14, 1872, Miss Fox married
Mr. H. D. Jencken, a London barrister-at-law,
author of " A Compendium of Modern Roman
Law," etc., and honorary general secretary of the
Association for the Reform and Codification of the
Law of Nations. He was one of the earliest
Spiritualists in England.

The Spiritualist, in its account of the ceremony,
says that the spirit people took part in the proceedings,
for at the wedding breakfast loud raps were heard
coming from various parts of the room, and the large
table on which stood the wedding-cake was repeatedly
raised from the floor.

A contemporary witness states that Mrs. Kate Fox-
Jencken (as she came to be known) and her husband
were to be met in the early 'seventies in good social
circles in London. Her services were eagerly sought
after by investigators.

John Page Hopps describes her at this time as

" a small, thin, very intelligent, but rather simpering

little woman, with nice, gentle manners and a quiet

enjoyment of her experiments which entirely saved

96

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

her from the slightest touch of self-importance or
affectation of mystery."

Her mediumship consisted chiefly of raps (often
of great power), spirit lights, direct writing, and
the appearance of materialized hands. Full form
materializations, which had been an occasional
feature of her sittings in America, were rare with
her in England. On a number of occasions
objects in the stance-room were moved by spirit
agency, and in some cases brought from another
room.

It was about this time that Professor William
Crookes conducted his inquiries into the medium's
powers, and issued that whole-hearted report which
is dealt with later when Crookes's early connexion
with Spiritualism comes to be discussed. These care-
ful observations show that the rappings constituted
only a small part of Kate Fox's psychic powers, and
that if they could be adequately explained by normal
means they would still leave us amid mysteries. Thus
Crookes recounts how, when the only people present
besides himself and Miss Fox were his wife and a lady
relative :

" I was holding the medium's two hands in one
of mine, while her feet were resting on my feet.
Paper was on the table before us, and my disengaged
hand was holding a pencil.

" A luminous hand came down from the upper
part of the room, and after hovering near me for a
few seconds, took the pencil from my hand, rapidly
wrote on a sheet of paper, threw the pencil down, and

H 97

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

then rose over our heads, gradually fading into dark-
ness."

Many other observers describe similar phenomena
with this medium on various occasions.

A very extraordinary phase of Mrs. Fox-Jencken's
mediumship was the production of luminous sub-
stances. In the presence of Mrs. Makdougall Gre-
gory, Mr. W. H. Harrison, the editor of a London
newspaper, and others, a hand appeared carrying some
phosphorescent material, about four inches square,
with which the floor was struck and a sitter's face
touched.* The light proved to be cold. Miss Rosa-
mund Dale Owen, in her account of this pheno-
menon,! describes the objects as " illumined crystals,"
and says that she has seen no materialization which
gave so realistic a feeling of spirit nearness as did these
graceful lights. The author can also corroborate the
fact that these lights are usually cold, as on one occa-
sion, with another medium, such a light settled for
some seconds upon his face. Miss Owen also speaks
of books and small ornaments being carried about, and
a heavy musical box, weighing about twenty-five
pounds, being brought from a side-table. A pecu-
liarity of this instrument was that it had been out of
order for months and could not be used until the
unseen forces repaired it and wound it themselves.

Mrs. Jencken's mediumship was interwoven in the
texture of her daily life. Professor Butlerof says that
when he paid a morning social call on her and her

* The Spiritualist, Vol. VIII, p. 299.
t Light, 1884, p. 170.

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

husband in company with M. Aksakof he heard raps
upon the floor. Spending an evening at the Jenckens'
house, he reports that raps were numerous during tea.
Miss Rosamund Dale Owen also refers* to the incident
of the medium standing in the street at a shop window
with two ladies, when raps joined in the conversation,
the pavement vibrating under their feet. The raps
are described as having been loud enoush to attract
the attention of passers by. Mr. Jencken relates many
cases of spontaneous phenomena in their home life.

'A volume could be filled with details of the
stances of this medium, but with the exception of one
further record we must be content with agreeing with
the dictum of Professor Butlerof, of the University of
St. Petersburg, who, after investigating her powers
in London, wrote in The Spiritualist (February 4,
1876):

From all that I was able to observe in the presence of
Mrs. Jencken, I am forced to come to the conclusion that
the phenomena peculiar to that medium are of a strongly
objective and convincing nature, and they would, I
think, be sufficient for the most pronounced but honest
sceptic to cause him to reject ventriloquism, muscular
action, and every such artificial explanation of the
phenomena.

Mr. H. D. Jencken died in 1881, and his widow
was left with two sons. These children showed won-
derful mediumship at a very early age, particulars of
which will be found in contemporary records.f

Mr. S. C. Hall, a well-known literary man and a

* Light, 1884, p. 39.

t The Spiritualist, Vol. IV, p. 138, and Vol. VII, p. 66.

99

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

prominent Spiritualist, describes* a sitting at his house
in Kensington on his birthday, May 9, 1 882, at which
his deceased wife manifested her presence:

Many interesting and touching messages were conveyed
to me by the usual writing of Mrs. Jencken. We were
directed to put out the light. Then commenced a series
of manifestations such as I have not often seen equalled,
and very seldom surpassed. ... I removed a small
handbell from the table and held it in my own hand. I
felt a hand take it from me, when it was rung in all parts
of the room during at least five minutes. I then placed an
accordion under the table, whence it was removed, and at a
distance of three or four feet from the table round which
we were seated, tunes were played. The accordion was
played and the bell was rung in several parts of the room,
while two candles were lit on the table. It was not, there-
fore, what is termed a dark sitting, although occasionally
the lights were put out. During all the time Mr. Stack
held one of the hands of Mrs. Jencken and I held the other
each frequently saying, " I have Mrs. Jencken's hand
m mine."

About fifty flowers of heartsease were placed on a
sheet of paper before me. I had received some heartsease
flowers from a friend in the morning, but the vase that con-
tained them was not in the sitting-room. I sent for it and
found it intact. The bouquet had not been in the least
disturbed. In what is called " Direct Writing " I found
these words written in pencil in a very small hand, on a
sheet of paper that lay before me, " I have brought you
my token of love." At a sitting some days previously
(when alone with Mrs. Jencken) I had received this mes-
sage, " On your birthday I will bring you a token of love."

Mr. Hall adds that he had marked the sheet of

* Light, 1882, pp. 339-40.
too

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

paper with his initials, and, as an extra precaution, had
torn off one of the corners in such a manner as to
ensure recognition.

It is evident that Mr. Hall was greatly impressed
by what he had seen. He writes: " I have witnessed
and recorded many wonderful manifestations; I doubt
if I have seen any more convincing than this; certainly
none more refined; none that gave more conclusive
evidence that pure and good and holy spirits alone
were communicating." He states that he has con-
sented to become Mrs. Jencken's " banker," presum-
ably for funds for the education of her two boys. In
view of what afterwards happened to this gifted
medium, there is a sad interest in his concluding
words :

I feel confidence approaching certainty that, in all
respects, she will so act as to increase and not lessen her
power as a medium while retaining the friendship and trust
of the many who cannot but feel for her a regard in some
degree resembling (as arising from the same source) that
which the New Church accords to Emanuel Swedenborg,
and the Methodists render to John Wesley. Assuredly
Spiritualists owe to this lady a huge debt for the glad
tidings she was largely the instrument, selected by Provi-
dence, to convey to them.

We have given this account in some detail because
it shows that the gifts of the medium were at this time
of a high and powerful order. A few years earlier,
at a stance at her house on December 14, 1873, on
the occasion of the first anniversary of her wedding, a
spirit message was rapped out: " When shadows fall
upon you, think of the brighter side." It was a

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

prophetic message, for the end of her life was all
shadows.

Margaret (Mrs. Fox-Kane) had joined her sister
Kate in England in 1876, and they remained together
for some years until the very painful incident occurred
which has now to be discussed. It would appear that
a very bitter quarrel broke out between the elder
sister Leah (now Mrs. Underbill) and the two younger
ones. It is probable that Leah may have heard that
there was now a tendency to alcoholism, and may have
interfered with more energy than tact. Some Spiritu-
alists interfered also, and incurred the fury of the two
sisters by some suggestion that Kate's children should
be separated from her.

Looking round for some weapon any weapon
with which they could injure those whom they so
bitterly hated, it seems to have occurred to them or,
according to their subsequent statement, to have been
suggested to them, with promises of pecuniary reward
that if they injured the whole cult by an admission
of fraud they would wound Leah and her associates
in their most sensitive part. On the top of alcoholic
excitement and the frenzy of hatred there was added
religious fanaticism, for Margaret had been lectured
by some of the leading spirits of the Church of Rome
and persuaded, as Home had been also for a short
time, that her own powers were evil. She mentions
Cardinal Manning as having influenced her mind in
this way, but her statements are not to be taken too
seriously. At any rate, all these causes combined and
reduced her to a state which was perilously near mad-

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

ness. Before leaving London she had written to the
New Tork Herald denouncing the cult, but stating in
one sentence that the rappings were " the only part of
the phenomena that is worthy of notice." On reach-
ing New York, where, according to her own subsequent
statement, she was to receive a sum of money for the
newspaper sensation which she promised to produce,
she broke out into absolute raving against her elder
sister.

It is a curious psychological study, and equally
curious is the mental attitude of the people who could
imagine that the assertions of an unbalanced woman,
acting not only from motives of hatred but also from
as she herself stated the hope of pecuniary reward,
could upset the critical investigation of a generation
of observers.

None the less, we have to face the fact that she did
actually produce rappings, or enable raps to be pro-
duced, at a subsequent meeting in the New York
Academy of Music. This might be discounted upon
the grounds that in so large a hall any prearranged
sound might be attributed to the medium. More
important is the evidence of the reporter of the
Herald, who had a previous private performance. He
describes it thus :

I heard first a rapping under the floor near my feet,
then under the chair in which I was seated, and again
under a table on which I was leaning. She led me to the
door and I heard the same sound on the other side of it.
Then when she sat down on the piano stool the instrument
reverberated more loudly and the tap-tap resounded through-
out its hollow structure.

103

This account makes it clear that she had the noises
under control, though the reporter must have been
more unsophisticated than most pressmen of my
acquaintance, if he could believe that sounds varying
both in quality and in position all came from some
click within the medium's foot. He clearly did not
know how the sounds came, and it is the author's
opinion that Margaret did not know either. That
she really had something which she could exhibit is
proved, not only by the experience of the reporter
but by that of Mr. Wedgwood, a London Spiritualist,
to whom she gave a demonstration before she started
for America. It is vain, therefore, to contend that
there was no basis at all in Margaret's exposure. What
that basis was we must endeavour to define.

The Margaret Fox-Kane sensation was in August
and September, 1888 a welcome boon for the enter-
prising paper which had exploited it. In October
Kate came over to join forces with her sister. It
should be explained that the real quarrel, so far as is
known, was between Kate and Leah, for Leah had
endeavoured to get Kate's children taken from her on
the grounds that the mother's influence was not for
good. Therefore, though Kate did not rave, and
though she volunteered no exposures in public or
private, she was quite at one with her sister in the
general plot to '* down " Leah at all costs.

She was the one who caused my arrest last spring
(she said) and the bringing of the preposterous charge
that I was cruel to my children. I don't know why it is
she has always been jealous of Maggie and me ; I suppose

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

because we could do things in Spiritualism that she
couldn't.

She was present at the Hall of Music meeting on
October 21, when Margaret made her repudiation
and produced the raps. She was silent on that occa-
sion, but that silence may be taken as a support of the
statements to which she listened.

If this were indeed so, and if she spoke as reported
to the interviewer, her repentance must have come
very rapidly. Upon November 17, less than a month
after the famous meeting, she wrote to a lady in
London, Mrs. Cottell, who was the tenant of Carlyle's
old house, this remarkable letter from New York
(Light, 1888, p. 619):

I would have written to you before this but my
surprise was so great on my arrival to hear of Maggie's
exposure of Spiritualism that I had no heart to write to
anyone.

The manager of the affair engaged the Academy of
Music, the very largest place of entertainment in New
York City ; it was filled to overflowing.

. They made fifteen hundred dollars clear. I have often
wished I had remained with you, and if I had the means
I would now return to get out of all this.

I think now I could make money in proving that the
knockings are not made with the toes. So many people
come to me to ask me about this exposure of Maggie's
that I have to deny myself to them.

They are hard at work to expose the whole thing if
they can ; but they certainly cannot.

Maggie is giving public exposures in all the large
places in America, but I have only seen her once since I
arrived.

105

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

This letter of Kate's points to pecuniary temptation
as playing a large part in the transaction. Maggie,
however, seems to have soon found that there was little
money in it, and could see no profit in telling lies for
which she was not paid, and which had only proved
that the Spiritualistic movement was so firmly estab-
lished that it was quite unruffled by her treachery.
For this or other reasons let us hope with some final
twinges of conscience as to the part she had played
she now admitted that she had been telling falsehoods
from the lowest motives. The interview was reported
in the New York Press, November 20, 1889, about
a year after the onslaught.

" Would to God," she said, in a voice that trembled
with intense excitement, " that I could undo the in-
justice I did the cause of Spiritualism when, under the
strong psychological influence of persons inimical to
it, I gave expression to utterances that had no
foundation in fact. This retraction and denial has
not come about so much from my own sense of
what is right as from the silent impulse of the
spirits using my organism at the expense of the
hostility of the treacherous horde who held out
promises of wealth and happiness in return for an
attack on Spiritualism, and whose hopeful assurances
were so deceitful. . . .

" Long before I spoke to any person on this
matter, I was unceasingly reminded by my spirit con-
trol what I should do, and at last I have come to the
conclusion that it would be useless for me further to
thwart their promptings. ..."
106

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

" Has there been no mention of a monetary con-
sideration for this statement ? "

" Not the smallest; none whatever."

" Then financial gain is not the end which you are
looking to ? "

" Indirectly, yes. You know that even a mortal
instrument in the hands of the spirit must have the
maintenance of life. This I propose to derive from
my lectures. Not one cent has passed to me from any
person because I adopted this course."

" What cause led up to your exposure of the spirit
rappings ? "

" At that time I was in great need of money, and
persons who for the present I prefer not to name
took advantage of the situation; hence the trouble.
The excitement, too, helped to upset my mental
equilibrium."

" What was the object of the persons who induced
you to make the confession that you and all other
mediums traded on the credulity of people ? "

" They had several objects in view. Their first
and paramount idea was to crush Spiritualism, to
make money for themselves, and to get up a great
excitement, as that was an element in which they
flourish."

" Was there any truth in the charges you made
against Spiritualism ? "

" Those charges were false in every particular. I
have no hesitation in saying that. ..."

" No, my belief in Spiritualism has undergone no
change. When I made those dreadful statements I

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

was not responsible for my words. Its genuineness is
an incontrovertible fact. Not all the Herrmans that
ever breathed can duplicate the wonders that are pro-
duced through some mediums. By deftness of fingers
and smartness of wits they may produce writing on
papers and slates, but even this cannot bear close in-
vestigation. Materialization is beyond their mental
calibre to reproduce, and I challenge anyone to make
the ' rap ' under the same conditions which I will.
There is not a human being on earth can produce the
' raps ' in the same way as they are through me."

" Do you propose to hold stances ? "

" No, I will devote myself entirely to platform
work, as that will find me a better opportunity to
refute the foul slanders uttered by me against
Spiritualism."

" What does your sister Kate say of your present
course ? "

" She is in complete sympathy with me. She did
not approve my course in the past. ..."

" Will you have a manager for your lecture tour ? "

" No, sir. I have a horror of them. They, too,
treated me most outrageously. Frank Stechcn acted
shamefully with me. He made considerable money
through his management for me, and left me in Boston
without a cent. All I got from him was five hundred
and fifty dollars, which was given to me at the begin-
ning of the contract."

To give greater authenticity to the interview, at
her suggestion the following open letter was written
to which she placed her signature:

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

128, West Forty-third Street,
New York City,

November 16, 1889.
To THE PUBLIC.

The foregoing interview having been read over to me
I find nothing contained therein that is not a correct record
of my words and truthful expression of my sentiments.
I have not given a detailed account of the ways and means
which were devised to bring me under subjection, and so
extract from me a declaration that the spiritual phenomena
as exemplified through my organism were a fraud. But
I shall fully atone for this incompleteness when I get upon
the platform.

The exactness of this interview was testified to by
the names of a number of witnesses, including J. L.
O'Sullivan, who was U.S. Minister to Portugal for
twenty-five years. He said, " If ever I heard a woman
speak truth, it was then."

So it may have been, but the failure of her lecture-
agent to keep her in funds seems to have been the
determining factor.

The statement would settle tne question if we
could take the speaker's words at face value, but un-
fortunately the author is compelled to agree with Mr.
Isaac Funk, an indefatigable and impartial researcher,
that Margaret at this period of her life could not
be relied upon.

What is a good deal more to the purpose is that
Mr. Funk sat with Margaret, that he heard the raps
" all round the room " without detecting their origin,
and that they spelt out to him a name and address
which were correct and entirely beyond the knowledge

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

of the medium. The information given was wrong,
but, on the other hand, abnormal power was shown by
reading the contents of a letter in Mr. Funk's pocket.
Such mixed results are as puzzling as the other larger
problem discussed in this chapter.

There is one factor which has been scarcely
touched upon in this examination. It is the character
and career of Mrs. Fish, afterwards Mrs. Underbill,
who as Leah, the elder sister, plays so prominent a part
in the matter. We know her chiefly by her book,
" The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism " (Knox
& Co., New York, 1885). This book was written by
a friend, but the facts and documents were provided
by Mrs. Underbill, who checked the whole narrative.
It is simply and even crudely put together, and the
Spiritualist is bound to conclude that the entities with
whom the Fox circle were at first in contact were not
always of the highest order. Perhaps on another
plane, as on this, it is the plebeians and the lowly who
carry out spiritual pioneer work in their own rough
way and open the path for other and more refined
agencies. With this sole criticism, one may say that
the book gives a sure impression of candour and good
sense, and as a personal narrative of one who was so
nearly concerned in these momentous happenings, it
is destined to outlive most of our current literature and
to be read with close attention and even with rever-
ence by generations unborn. Those humble folk who
watched over the new birth Capron, of Auburn, who
first lectured upon it in public ; Jervis, the gallant
Methodist minister, who cried, "I know it is true, and

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

I will face the frowning world ! " ; George Willetts, the
Quaker; Isaac Post, who called the first spiritual
meeting; the gallant band who testified upon the
Rochester platform while the rowdies were heating
the tar all of them are destined to live in history. Of
Leah it can truly be said that she recognized the reli-
gious meaning of the movement far more clearly than
her sisters were able to do, and that she set her face
against that use of it for purely worldly objects which
is a degradation of the celestial. The following pas-
sage is of great interest as showing how the Fox family
first regarded this visitation, and must impress the
reader with the sincerity of the writer:

The general feeling of our family . . . was strongly
adverse to all this strange and uncanny thing. We re-
garded it as a great misfortune which had fallen
upon us; how, whence or why we knew not. . . . We
resisted it, struggled against it, and constantly and earn-
estly prayed for deliverance from it, even while a strange
fascination attached to these marvellous manifestations thus
forced upon us, against our will, by invisible agencies and
agents whom we could neither resist, control nor under-
stand. If our will, earnest desires and prayers could have
prevailed or availed, the whole thing would have ended
then and there, and the world outside of our little neigh-
bourhood would never have heard more of the Rochester
Rappings, or of the unfortunate Fox family.

These words give the impression of sincerity, and alto-
gether Leah stands forth in her book, and in the evi-
dence of the many witnesses quoted, as one who was
worthy to play a part in a great movement.

Both Kate Fox-Jencken and Margaret Fox-Kane

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

died in the early 'nineties, and their end was one of
sadness and gloom. The problem which they
present is put fairly before the reader, avoiding the
extremes of the too sensitive Spiritualist who will not
face the facts, and the special-pleading sceptics who lay
stress upon those parts of the narrative which suit their
purpose and omit or minimize everything else. Let
us see, at the cost of a break in our narrative,
if any sort of explanation can be found which
covers the double fact that what these sisters could do
was plainly abnormal, and yet that it was, to some
extent at least, under their control. It is not a simple
problem, but an exceedingly deep one which exhausts,
and more than exhausts, the psychic knowledge which
is at this date available, and was altogether beyond the
reach of the generation in which the Fox sisters were
alive.

The simple explanation which was given by the
Spiritualists of the time is not to be set aside readily
and least readily by those who know most. It was
that a medium who ill-uses her gifts and suffers debase-
ment of moral character through bad habits, becomes
accessible to evil influences which may use her for
false information or for the defilement of a pure
cause. That may be true enough as a causa causans.
But we must look closer to see the actual how and
why.

The author is of opinion that the true explanation
will be found by coupling all these happenings with
the recent investigations of Dr. Crawford upon the
means by which physical phenomena are produced.

1RGARE1TA FOX KA1E FOX-JEIKEN LEAH UNDERBILL

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

He showed very clearly, as is detailed in a subsequent
chapter, that raps (we are dealing at present only with
that phase) are caused by a protrusion from the
medium's person of a long rod of a substance having
certain properties which distinguish it from all other
forms of matter. This substance has been closely
examined by the great French physiologist, Dr.
Charles Richet, who has named it " ectoplasm." These
rods are invisible to the eye, partly visible to the sensi-
tive plate, and yet conduct energy in such a fashion
as to make sounds and strike blows at a distance.

Now, if Margaret produced the raps in the same
fashion as Crawford's medium, we have only to make
one or two assumptions which are probable in them-
selves, and which the science of the future may defin-
itely prove in order to make the case quite clear. The
one assumption is that a centre of psychic force is
formed in some part of the body from which the
ectoplasm rod is protruded. Supposing that centre to
be in Margaret's foot, it would throw a very clear
light upon the evidence collected in the Seybert
inquiry. In examining Margaret and endeavouring
to get raps from her, one of the committee, with the
permission of the medium, placed his hand upon her
foot. Raps at once followed. The investigator cried :
" This is the most wonderful thing of all, Mrs. Kane.
I distinctly feel them in your foot. There is not a
particle of motion in your foot, but there is an unusual
pulsation."

This experiment by no means bears out the idea
of joint dislocation or snapping toes. It is, however,

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

exactly what one could imagine in the case of a centre
from which psychic power was projected. This power
is in material shape and is drawn from the body of the
medium, so that there must be some nexus. This
nexus may vary. In the case quoted it was in Mar-
garet's foot. It was observed by the Buffalo doctors
that there was a subtle movement of a medium at the
moment of a rap. The observation was correct,
though the inference was wrong. The author has him-
self distinctly seen in the case of an amateur medium
a slight general pulsation when a rap was given a
recoil, as it were, after the discharge of force.

Granting that Margaret's power worked in this
way, we have now only to discuss whether ectoplasmic
rods can under any circumstances be protruded at will.
So far as the author knows, there are no observations
which bear directly upon the point. Crawford's
medium seems always to have manifested when in
trance, so that the question did not arise. In other
physical phenomena there is some reason to think that
in their simpler form they are closely connected with
the medium, but that as they progress they pass out
of her control and are swayed by forces outside her-
self. Thus the ectoplasm pictures photographed by
Madame Bisson and Dr. Schrenck Notzing (as shown
in his recent book) may in their first forms be ascribed
to the medium's thoughts or memories taking visible
shape in ectoplasm, but as she becomes lost in trance
they take the form of figures which in extreme cases
are endowed with independent life. If there be a
general analogy between the two classes of pheno-

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

mena, then it is entirely possible that Margaret had
some control over the expulsion of ectoplasm which
caused the sound, but that when the sound gave forth
messages which were beyond her possible knowledge,
as in the case instanced by Funk, the power was
no longer used by her but by some independent
intelligence.

It is to be remembered that no one is more" ignorant
of how effects are produced than the medium, who is
the centre of them. One of the greatest physical
mediums in the world told the author once that he had
never witnessed a physical phenomenon, as he was
himself always in trance when they occurred; the
opinion of any one of the sitters would be more valu-
able than his own. Thus in the case of these Fox
sisters, who were mere children when the phenomena
began, they knew little of the philosophy of the sub-
ject, and Margaret frequently said that she did not
understand her own results. If she found that she
had herself some power of producing the raps, how-
ever obscure the way by which she did it, she would
be in a frame of mind when she might well find it
impossible to contradict Dr. Kane when he accused
her of being concerned in it. Her confession, too,
and that of her sister, would to that extent be true,
but each would be aware, as they afterwards admitted,
that there was a great deal more which could not be
explained and which did not emanate from them-
selves.

There remains, however, one very important point
to be discussed the most important of all to those who

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

accept the religious significance of this movement. It
is a most natural argument for those who are un-
versed in the subject to say, " Are these your fruits ?
Can a philosophy or religion be good which has such
an effect upon those who have had a prominent place
in its establishment ? " No one can cavil at such an
objection, and it calls for a clear answer, which has
often been made and yet is in need of repetition.

Let it then be clearly stated that there is no more
connexion between physical mediumship and morality
than there is between a refined ear for music and
morality. Both are purely physical gifts. The
musician might interpret the most lovely thoughts and
excite the highest emotions in others, influencing their
thoughts and raising their minds. Yet in himself he
might be a drug-taker, a dipsomaniac, or a pervert.
On the other hand, he might combine his musical
powers with an angelic personal character. There is
simply no connexion at all between the two things,
save that they both have their centre in the same
human body.

So it is in physical mediumship. We all, or nearly
all, exude a certain substance from our bodies which
has very peculiar properties. With most of us, as is
shown by Crawford's weighing chairs, the amount is
negligible. With one in 100,000 it is considerable.
That person is a physical medium. He or she gives
forth a raw material which can, we hold, be used by
independent external forces. The individual's char-
acter has nothing to do with the matter. Such is the
result of two generations of observation.

116

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

If it were exactly as stated, then, the physical
medium's character would be in no way affected by
his gift. Unfortunately, that is to understate the
case. Under our present unintelligent conditions, the
physical medium is subjected to certain moral risks
which it takes a strong and well-guarded nature to
withstand. The failures of these most useful and
devoted people may be likened to those physical
injuries, the loss of fingers and hands, incurred by
those who have worked with the X-rays before their
full properties were comprehended. Means have
been taken to overcome these physical dangers after
a certain number have become martyrs for science, and
the moral dangers will also be met when a tardy
reparation will be made to the pioneers who have
injured themselves in forcing the gates of knowledge.
These dangers lie in the weakening of the will, in the
extreme debility after phenomenal sittings, and the
temptation to gain temporary relief from alcohol, in
the temptation to fraud when the power wanes, and
in the mixed and possibly noxious spirit influences
which surround a promiscuous circle, drawn together
from motives of curiosity rather than of religion. The
remedy is to segregate mediums, to give them salaries
instead of paying them by results, to regulate the
number of their sittings and the character of the sitters,
and thus to remove them from influences which over-
whelmed the Fox sisters as they have done other of
the strongest mediums in the past. On the other
hand, there are physical mediums who retain such high
motives and work upon such religious lines that they

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

are the salt of the earth. It is the same power which
is used by the Buddha and by the Woman of Endor.
The objects and methods of its use are what determine
the character.

The author has said that there is little connexion
between physical mediumship and morality. One
could imagine the ectoplasmic flow being as brisk
from a sinner as from a saint, impinging upon material
objects in the same way and producing results which
would equally have the good effect of convincing the
materialist of forces outside his ken. This does not
apply, however, to internal mediumship, taking the
form not of phenomena but of teaching and messages,
given either by spirit voice, human voice, automatic
writing, or any other device. Here the vessel is
chosen that it may match what it contains. One could
not imagine a small nature giving temporary habita-
tion to a great spirit. One must be a Vale Owen be-
fore one gets Vale Owen messages. If a high medium
degenerated in character, I should expect to find the
messages cease or else share in the degeneration.
Hence, too, the messages of a divine spirit such as is
periodically sent to cleanse the world, of a mediaeval
saint, of Joan of Arc, of Swedenborg, of Andrew Jack-
son Davis, or of the humblest automatic writer in
London, provided that the impulse is a true one, are
really the same thing in various degrees. Each is a
genuine breath from beyond, and yet each inter-
mediary tinges with his or her personality the message
which comes through. So, as in a glass darkly, we
see this wondrous mystery, so vital and yet so unde-

THE CAREER OF THE FOX SISTERS

fined. It is its very greatness which prevents it from
being defined. We have done a little, but we hand
back many a problem to those who march behind us.
They may look upon our own most advanced specula-
tion as elementary, and yet may see vistas of thought
before them which will stretch to the uttermost bounds
of their mental vision.

CHAPTER VI

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

HAVING dealt with the history of the Fox
family and the problems which that history
raises, we shall now return to America and
note the first effects of this invasion from another
sphere of being.

These effects were not entirely excellent. There
were follies on the part of individuals and extrava-
gances on that of communities.

One of these, based on communications received
through the mediumship of Mrs. Benedict, was the
Apostolic Circle. It was started by a small group of
men, strong believers in a second advent, who sought
through spirit communications to confirm that belief.
They obtained what they proclaimed to be com-
munications from Apostles and prophets of the Bible.
In 1849 James L. Scott, a Seventh Day Baptist
minister of Brooklyn, joined this circle at Auburn,
which now became known as the Apostolic Move-
ment, and its spiritual leader was said to be the
Apostle Paul. Scott was joined by the Rev. Thomas
Lake Harris, and they established at Mountain Cove
the religious community which attracted a strong
following, until after some years their dupes became
disillusioned and deserted their autocratic leaders.

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

This man, Thomas Lake Harris, is certainly one
of the most curious personalities of whom we have
any record, and it is hard to say whether Jekyll or
Hyde predominated in his character. He was com-
pounded of extremes, and everything which he did
was outstanding for good or for evil. He was origin-
ally a Universalist minister, whence he derived the
" Rev." which he long used as a prefix. He broke
away from his associates, adopted the teachings of
Andrew Jackson Davis, became a fanatical Spiritual-
ist, and finally, as already stated, claimed to be one of
the autocratic rulers of the souls and purses of the
colonists of Mountain Cove. There came a time,
however, when the said colonists concluded that they
were quite capable of looking after their own affairs
both spiritual and material, so Harris found his voca-
tion gone. He then came to New York and threw
himself violently into the Spiritualistic movement,
preaching at Dodworth Hall, the head-quarters of the
cult, and gaining a great and deserved reputation for
remarkable eloquence. His megalomania possibly
an obsession broke out once more, and he made
extravagant claims which the sane and sober Spiritual-
ists around him would not tolerate. There was one
claim, however, which he could go to some length in
making good, and that was inspiration from a very
true and high poetic afflatus, though whether inborn
or from without it is impossible to say. While at this
stage of his career he, or some power through him,
produced a series of poems, " A Lyric of the Golden
Age," " The Morning Land," and others, which do

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

occasionally touch the stars. Piqued by the refusal
of the New York Spiritualists to admit his supernal
claims, Harris then (1859) went to England, where he
gained fame by his eloquence, shown in lectures which
consisted of denunciations of his own former col-
leagues in New York. Each successive step in the
man's life was accompanied by a defilement of the
last step from which he had come.

In 1860, in London, Harris's life suddenly
assumes a closer interest to Britons, especially to those
who have literary affinities. Harris lectured at Stein-
way Hall, and while there Lady Oliphant listened to
his wild eloquence, and was so affected by it that she
brought the American preacher into touch with her
son, Laurence Oliphant, one of the most brilliant men
of his generation. It is difficult to see where the
attraction lay, for the teaching of Harris at this stage
had nothing uncommon in its matter, save that he
seems to have adopted the Father-God and Mother-
Nature idea which was thrown out by Davis. Oli-
phant placed Harris high as a poet, referring to him
as " the greatest poet of the age as yet unknown to
fame." Oliphant was no mean judge, and yet in an
age which included Tennyson, Longfellow, Brown-
ing, and so many more, the phrase seems extravagant.
The end of the whole episode was that, after delays and
vacillations, both mother and son surrendered them-
selves entirely to Harris, and went forth to manual
labour in a new colony at Brocton in New York,
where they remained in a condition which was virtual
slavery save that it was voluntary. Whether such self-

122

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

abnegation is saintly or idiotic is a question for the
angels. It certainly seems idiotic when we learn that
Laurence Oliphant had the greatest difficulty in get-
ting leave to marry, and expressed humble gratitude
to the tyrant when he was at last allowed to do so.
He was set free to report the Franco-German War
of 1870, which he did in the brilliant manner that
might be expected of him, and then he returned to
his servitude once more, one of his duties being to sell
strawberries in baskets to the passing trains, while he
was arbitrarily separated from his young wife, she
being sent to Southern California and he retained at
Brocton. It was not until the year 1882, twenty
years from his first entanglement, that Oliphant, his
mother being then dead, broke these extraordinary
bonds, and after a severe struggle, in the course of
which Harris took steps to have him incarcerated in
an asylum, rejoined his wife, recovered some of his
property, and resumed his normal life. He drew the
prophet Harris in his book " Masollam," written in
his later years, and the result is so characteristic both
of Oliphant's brilliant word-painting and of the extra-
ordinary man whom he painted, that the reader will
perhaps be glad to refer to it in the Appendix.

Such developments as Harris and others were only
excrescences on the main Spiritualistic movement,
which generally speaking was sane and progressive.
The freaks stood in the way of its acceptance, however,
as the communistic or free love sentiments of some of
these wild sects were unscrupulously exploited by the
opposition as being typical of the whole.
123

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

We have seen that though the spiritual manifesta-
tions obtained wide public notice through the Fox
girls, they were known long before this. To the pre-
ceding testimony to this effect we may add that of
Judge Edmonds, who says:* " It is about five years
since the subject first attracted public attention, though
we discover now that for the previous ten or twelve
years there had been more or less of it in different
parts of the country, but it had been kept concealed,
either from fear of ridicule or from ignorance of what
it was." This explains the surprising number of
mediums who began to be heard of immediately after
the publicity obtained through the Fox family. It
was no new gift they exhibited, it was only that their
courageous action in making it widely known made
others come forward and confess that they possessed
the same power. Also this universal gift of medium-
istic faculties now for the first time began to be freely
developed. The result was that mediums were heard
of in ever-increasing numbers. In April, 1849, man i~
festations occurred in the family of the Rev. A. H.
Jervis, the Methodist minister of Rochester, in that of
Mr. Lyman Granger, also of Rochester, and in the
home of Deacon Hale, in the neighbouring town of
Greece. So, too, six families in the adjoining town of
Auburn began to develop mediumship. In none of
these cases had the Fox girls any connexion with what
took place. So these leaders simply blazed the trail
along which others followed.

* " Spiritualism," by John W. Edmonds and Qoorgo T. Dexter, M.D.,
New York, 1853, p. 36.

124

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

Outstanding features of the next succeeding years
were the rapid growth of mediums on every side, and
the conversion to a belief in Spiritualism of great
public men like Judge Edmonds, ex-Governor Tall-
madge, Professor Robert Hare, and Professor Mapes.
The public support of such well-known men gave
enormous publicity to the subject, while at the same
time it increased the virulence of the opposition,
which now perceived it had to deal with more than a
handful of silly, deluded people. Men such as these
could command a hearing in the Press of the day.
There was also a change in the character of the
spiritual phenomena. In the years 1851-2 Mrs.
Hayden and D. D. Home were instrumental in making
many converts. We shall have more to say about
these mediums in later chapters.

In a communication addressed " To the Public,"
published in the New York Courier and dated New
York, August i, 1853, Judge Edmonds, a man of high
character and clear intellect, gave a convincing account
of his own experience. It is a curious thing that the
United States, which at that time gave conspicuous
evidence of moral courage in its leading citizens, has
seemed to fall behind in recent years in this respect,
for the author in his recent journeys there found many
who were aware of psychic truth and yet shrank in
the face of a jeering Press from publishing their
convictions.

Judge Edmonds, in the article alluded to, began
by detailing the train of events which caused him to
form his opinions. It is dwelt upon here in some

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

detail, because it is very important as showing the
basis on which a highly educated man received the
new teaching :

It was January 1851 that my attention was first called
to the subject of " spiritual intercourse." I was at the time
withdrawn from general society ; I was labouring under
great depression of spirits. I was occupying all my leisure
in reading on the subject of death and man's existence after-
ward. I had, in the course of my life, read and heard
from the pulpit so many contradictory and conflicting
doctrines on the subject, that I hardly knew what to believe.
I could not, if I would, believe what I did not understand,
and was anxiously seeking to know, if, after death, we should
again meet with those whom we had loved here, and under
what circumstances. I was invited by a friend to witness
the " Rochester Knockings." I complied more to oblige
her, and to while away a tedious hour. I thought a good
deal on what I witnessed, and I determined to investigate
the matter and find out what it was. If it was a deception,
or a delusion, I thought that I could detect it. For about
four months I devoted at least two evenings in a week and
sometimes more to witnessing the phenomena in all its
phases. I kept careful records of all I witnessed, and from
time to time compared them with each other, to detect in-
consistencies and contradictions. I read all I could lay
my hands on on the subject, and especially all the professed
" exposures of the humbug." I went from place to place,
seeing different mediums, meeting with different parties
of persons often with persons whom I had never seen
before, and sometimes where I was myself entirely un-
known sometimes in the dark and sometimes in the light
often with inveterate unbelievers, and more frequently
with zealous believers.

In fine, I availed myself of every opportunity that was
126

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

afforded, thoroughly to sift the matter to the bottom.
I was all this time an unbeliever, and tried the patience of
believers sorely by my scepticism, my captiousness, and my
obdurate refusal to yield my belief. I saw around me some
who yielded a ready faith on one or two sittings only ;
others again, under the same circumstances, avowing a
determined unbelief ; and some who refused to witness it
at all, and yet were confirmed unbelievers. I could not
imitate either of these parties, and refused to yield unless
upon most irrefragable testimony. At length the evidence
came, and in such force that no sane man could withhold
his faith.

It will thus be seen that this, the earliest outstand-
ing convert to the new revelation, took the utmost
pains before he allowed the evidence to convince him
of the validity of the- claims of the spirit. General
experience shows that a facile acceptance of these
claims is very rare among earnest thinkers, and that
there is hardly any prominent Spiritualist whose
course of study and reflection has not involved a novi-
tiate of many years. This forms a striking contrast
to those negative opinions which are founded upon
initial prejudice and the biased or scandalous accounts
of partisan authors.

Judge Edmonds, in the excellent summary of his
position given in the article already quoted an article
whi^h should have converted the whole American
people had they been ready for assimilation pro-
ceeds to show the solid basis of his beliefs. He points
out that he was never alone when these manifestations
occurred, and that he had many witnesses. He also
shows the elaborate precautions which he took :

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

After depending upon my senses, as to these various
phases of the phenomenon, I invoked the aid of science,
and, with the assistance of an accomplished electrician
and his machinery, and eight or ten intelligent, educated,
shrewd persons, examined the matter. We pursued our
inquiries many days, and established to our satisfaction
two things : first, that the sounds were not produced by
the agency of any person present or near us ; and, second,
that they were not forthcoming at our will and pleasure.

He deals faithfully with the alleged " exposures "
in newspapers, some of which at long intervals are
true indictments of some villain, but which usually are
greater deceptions, conscious or unconscious, of the
public than the evils which they profess to attack.
Thus:

While these things were going on, there appeared in
the newspapers various explanations and " exposures of
the humbug," as they were termed. I read them with
care, in the expectation of being assisted in my researches,
and I could not but smile at once at the rashness and the
futility of the explanations. For instance, while certain
learned professors in Buffalo were congratulating themselves
on having detected it in the toe and knee joints, the mani-
festations in this city changed to ringing a bell placed
under the table. They were like the solution lately given
by a learned professor in England, who attributes the tip-
ping of tables to a force in the hands which arc laid upon
them, overlooking the material fact that tables quite as
frequently move when there is no hand upon them.

Having dealt with the objectivity of the pheno-
mena, the Judge next touched upon the more import-
ant question of their source. He commented upon
128

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

the fact that he had answers to mental questions and
found that his own secret thoughts were revealed, and
that purposes which he had privily entertained had
been made manifest. He notes also that he had heard
the mediums use Greek, Latin, Spanish, and French,
when they were ignorant of these languages.

This drives him to the consideration of whether
these things may not be explained as the reflection of
the mind of some other living human being. These
considerations have been exhausted by every inquirer
in turn, for Spiritualists do not accept their creed in
one bound, but make the journey step by step, with
much timid testing of the path. Judge Edmonds's
epitome of his course is but that which many others
have followed. He gives the following reasons for
negativing this question of other human minds :

Facts were communicated which were unknown then,
but afterward found to be true ; like this, for instance :
when I was absent last winter in Central America, my
friends in town heard of my whereabouts and of the state
of my health seven times ; and on my return, by comparing
their information with the entries in my journal it was found
to be invariably correct. So, in my recent visit to the West
my whereabouts and my condition were told to a medium
in this city, while I was travelling on the railroad between
Cleveland and Toledo. So thoughts have been uttered
on subjects not then in my mind, and utterly at variance with
my own notions. This has often happened to me and to
others, so as fully to establish the fact that it was not ou
minds that gave birth to or affected the communication.

He then deals with the object of this marvellous
development, and he points out its overwhelming
j 129

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

religious significance on the general lines with which
it 'is defined in a subsequent chapter of this work.
Judge Edmonds's brain was indeed a remarkable one,
and his judgment clear, for there is very little which
we can add to his statement, and perhaps it has never
been so well expressed in so small a compass. As we
point to it one can claim that Spiritualism has been
consistent from the first, and that the teachers and
guides have not mixed their message. It is a strange
and an amusing reflection that the arrogant science
which endeavoured by its mere word and glare to
crush this upstart knowledge in 1850 has been proved
to be essentially wrong on its own ground. There
are hardly any scientific axioms of that day, the
finality of the element, the indivisibility of the atom,
the separate origin of species, which have not been
controverted, whereas the psychic knowledge which
was so derided has steadily held its own, adding fresh
facts but never contradicting those which were
originally put forward.

Writing of the beneficent effects of this knowledge
the Judge says :

There is that which comforts the mourner and binds up
the broken-hearted; that which smooths the passage to the
grave and robs death of its terrors; that which enlightens the
atheist and cannot but reform the vicious; that which cheers
and encourages the virtuous amid all the trials and vicissi-
tudes of life ; and that which demonstrates to man his duty
and his destiny, leaving it no longer vague and uncertain.

The matter has never been better summed up
than that.

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

There is, however, one final passage in this remark-
able document which causes some sadness. Speaking
of the progress which the movement had made within
four years in the United States, he says: " There
are ten or twelve newspapers and periodicals devoted
to the cause and the spiritual library embraces
more than one hundred different publications, some
of which have already attained a circulation of more
than 10,000 copies. Besides the undistinguished
multitude there are many men of high standing
and talent ranked among them doctors, lawyers?
and clergymen in great numbers, a Protestant
bishop, the learned and reverend president of a
college, judges of our higher courts, members of
Congress, foreign ambassadors and ex-members of the
United States Senate." In four years the spirit force
had done as much as this. How does the matter stand
to-day ? The " undistinguished multitude " has
carried bravely on and the hundred publications have
grown into many more, but where are the men of
light and leading who point the path ? Since the
death of Professor Hyslop it is difficult to point to one
man of eminence in the United States who is ready
to stake his career and reputation upon the issue.
Those who would have never feared the tyranny of
man have shrank from the cat-calling of the public
Press. The printing-machine has succeeded where
the rack would have failed. The worldly loss in repu-
tation and in business sustained by Judge Edmonds
himself, who had to resign his seat upon the Supreme
Court of New York, and by many others who testified

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

to the truth, established a reign of terror which warns
the intellectual classes from the subject. So the
matter stands at present.

But the Press, for the moment, was well-disposed
and Judge Edmonds's famous summing-up, perhaps
the finest and most momentous that any judge has
ever delivered, met with respect, if not with concur-
rence. The New York Courier wrote :

The letter from Judge Edmonds, published by us on
Saturday, with regard to the so-called spiritual manifesta-
tions, coming as it did from an eminent jurist, a man re-
markable for his clear common sense in the practical affairs
of life, and a gentleman of irreproachable character, arrested
the attention of the community, and is regarded by many
persons as one of the most remarkable documents of the day.

The New York Evening Mirror said :
John W. Edmonds, the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court for this district, is an able lawyer, an industrious
judge and a good citizen. For the last eight years occupying
without interruption the highest judicial stations, whatever
may be his faults no one can justly accuse him of lack of
ability, industry, honesty or fearlessness. No one can doubt
his general saneness, or can believe for a moment that the
ordinary operations of his mind are not as rapid, accurate
and reliable as ever. Both by the practitioners and suitors
at his bar he is recognized as the head, in fact and in merit,
of the Supreme Court for this District.

The experience of Dr. Robert Hare, Professor of
Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, is also
of interest, because he was one of the first eminent
men of science who, setting out to expose the delusion
of Spiritualism, became finally a firm believer. It was

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

in 1853 that, in his own words, he " felt called upon,
as an act of duty to his fellow creatures, to bring what-
ever influence he possessed to the attempt to stem the
tide of popular madness which, in defiance of reason
and science, was fast setting in favour of the gross
delusion called Spiritualism." A denunciatory letter
of his published in the newspapers of Philadelphia,
where he lived, was copied by other newspapers all
over the country, and it was made the text of numer-
ous sermons. But, as with Sir William Crookes many
years later, the jubilation was premature. Professor
Hare, though a strong sceptic, was induced to experi-
ment for himself, and after a period of careful testing
he became entirely convinced of the spiritual origin
of the manifestations. Like Crookes, he devised
apparatus for use with mediums. Mr. S. B. Brittan*
gives the following condensed account of some of
Hare's experiments :

First, to satisfy himself that the movements were not
the works of mortals, he took brass billiard balls, placed them
on zinc plates and placed the hands of the mediums on the
balls and, to his very great astonishment the tables moved,
He next arranged a table to slide backward and forward,
to which attachments were made, causing a disc to revolve
containing the alphabet, hidden from the view of the mediums,.
The letters were variously arranged, out of their regular
consecutive order, and the spirit was required to place them
consecutively or in their regular places. And behold, it
was done 1 Then followed intelligent sentences which the
medium could not see or know the import of till they were
told him.

* Editor of The Spiritual Telegraph.
133

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Again he tried another capital test. The long end of
a lever was placed on spiral scales with an index attached
and the weight marked ; the medium's hand rested on the
short end of the beam, where it was impossible to give
pressure downward, but if pressed it would have a contrary
effect and raise the long end ; and yet, most astounding, the
weight was increased several pounds on the scale.

Professor Hare embodied his careful researches and
his views on Spiritualism in an important book pub-
lished in New York in 1855, entitled " Experimental
Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations." In this
(p. 55) he sums up the results of his early experiments
as follows :

The evidence of the manifestations adduced in the
foregoing narrative does not rest upon myself only, since
there have been persons present when they were observed,
and they have in my presence been repeated essentially
under various modifications in many instances not specially
alluded to.

The evidence may be contemplated under various
phases ; first, those in which rappings or other noises have
been made which could not be traced to any mortal agency ;
secondly, those in which sounds were so made as to indicate
letters forming grammatical, well-spelt sentences, affording
proof that they were under the guidance of some rational
being ; thirdly, those in which the nature of the communica-
tion has been such as to prove that the being causing them
must, agreeably to accompanying allegations, be some known
acquaintance, friend, or relative of the inquirer.

Again, cases in which movements have been made of
ponderable bodies ... of a nature to produce intellectual
communications resembling those obtained, as above-
mentioned, by sounds.

Although the apparatus by which these various proofs

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

were attained with the greatest possible precaution and pre-
cision, modified them as to the manner, essentially all the
evidence which I have obtained tending to the conclusions
above mentioned, has likewise been substantially obtained
by a great number of observers. Many who never sought
any spiritual communication and have not been induced
to enrol themselves as Spiritualists, will nevertheless not
only affirm the existence of the sounds and movements,
but also admit their inscrutability.

Mr. James J. Mapes, LL.D., of New York, an
agricultural chemist and member of various learned
societies, commenced his investigation into Spiritual-
ism in order to rescue, as he said, his friends, who
were " running to imbecility " over the new craze.
Through the mediumship of Mrs. Cora Hatch, after-
wards Mrs. Richmond, he received what are described
as marvellous scientific answers to his questions. He
ended by becoming a thorough believer, and his wife,
who had no artistic talent, became a drawing and
painting medium. His daughter had, unknown to
him, become a writing medium, and when she spoke
to him about this development he asked her to give
him an exhibition of her power. She took a pen and
rapidly wrote what professed to be a message from
Professor Mapes's father. The Professor asked for a
proof of identity. His daughter's hand at once
wrote: "You may recollect that I gave you, among
other books, an Encyclopaedia; look at page 120 of
that book, and you will find my name written there,
which you have never seen." The book referred to
was stored with others at a warehouse. When Pro-
fessor Mapes opened the case, which had been undis-

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

turbed for twenty-seven years, to his astonishment he
found his father's name written on page 1 20. It was
this incident which first led him to make a serious
investigation, for, like his friend Professor Hare, he
had up till that time been a strong materialist.
. In April, 1854, the Hon. James Shields presented
a memorial,* praying for inquiry, to the United States
legislature, with thirteen thousand signatures attached,
and with the name of Governor Tallmadge at the head
of the list. After a frivolous discussion, in which Mr.
Shields, who presented the petition, referred to the
belief held by the petitioners as due to a delusion
arising from defective education or deranged mental
faculties, it was formally agreed that the petition
should lie upon the table. Mr. E. W. Capron has
this comment : f

It is not probable that any of the memorialists expected
more favourable treatment than they received. The car-
penters and fishermen of the world are the ones to investi-
gate new truths and make Senates and Crowns believe and
respect them. It is in vain to look for the reception or
respect of new truths by men in high places.

The first regular Spiritualist organization was
formed in New York on June 10, 1854. It was
entitled the " Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual
Knowledge," and included among its members such
prominent people as Judge Edmonds and Governor
Tallmadge, of Wisconsin.

Among the activities of the society was the estab-

* See Capron, "Modern Spiritualism," pp. 359-363.
t " Modera Spiritualism," p. 375.
136

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

lishment of a newspaper called The Christian Spiritual-
ist, and the engagement of Miss Kate Fox to hold
daily stances, to which the public were admitted free
each morning from ten till one o'clock.
Writing in 1855 Capron* says :

It would be impossible to state particulars in regard
to the spread of Spiritualism in New York up to the present
time. It has become diffused throughout the city, and has
almost ceased to be a curiosity or a wonder to any. Public
meetings are regularly held, and the investigation is con-
stantly going on, but the days of excitement on the subject
have passed away, and all parties look upon it as, at least,
something more than a mere trick. It is true that religious
bigotry denounces it, but without disputing the occur-
rences, and occasionally a pretended expose* is made for
purposes of speculation ; but the fact of spiritual inter-
course has become an acknowledged fact in the Empire
city.

Perhaps the most significant fa * of the period we
have been considering was the development of
mediumship in prominent people, as, for instance,
Judge Edmonds and Professor Hare. The latter
writes : f

Having latterly acquired the powers of a medium in a
sufficient degree to interchange ideas with my spirit friends,
I am no longer under the necessity of defending media
from the charge of falsehood and deception. It is now my
own character only that can be in question.

Thus, dismissing the Fox girls from the field alto-
gether, we have the private mediumship of Rev. A. H.

* " Modern Spiritualism," p. 197.

t " Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations," p. 54.

137

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

Jervis, Deacon Hale, Lyman Granger, Judge Edmonds,
Professor Hare, Mrs. Mapes, Miss Mapes, and the
public mediumship of Mrs. Tamlin, Mrs. Benedict,
Mrs. Hayden, D. D. Home, and dozens of others.

It is not within the scope of this work to deal with
the great number of individual cases of mediumship,
some of them most dramatic and interesting, which
occurred during this first period of demonstration.
The reader is referred to Mrs. Hardinge Britten's two
important compilations, " Modern American Spiritu-
alism " and " Nineteenth Century Miracles," books
which will always be a most valuable record of early
days. The series of phenomenal cases was so great
that Mrs. Britten has counted over five thousand
separate instances recorded in the Press in the first
few years, which probably represents some hundreds
of thousands not so recorded. Religion so-called and
Science so-called united for once in an unholy
attempt to misrepresent and persecute the new truth
and its supporters, while the Press unfortunately found
that its interest lay in playing up to the prejudices of
the majority of its subscribers. It was easy to do
this, for naturally, in so vital and compelling a move-
ment, there were some who became fanatical, some
who threw discredit upon their opinions by their
actions, and some who took advantage of the general
interest to imitate, with more or less success, the real
gifts of the spirit. These fraudulent rascals were
sometimes mere cold-blooded swindlers, and some-
times seem to have been real mediums whose psychic
power had for a time deserted them. There were

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

scandals and exposures, some real and some pretended.
These exposures were then, as now, due often to the
Spiritualists themselves, who strongly objected to their
sacred ceremonies being a screen for the hypocrisies
and blasphemies of those villains who, like human
hyenas, tried to make a fraudulent living out of the
dead. The general result was to take the edge off
the first fine enthusiasm, and to set back the accept-
ance of what was true by an eternal harping on what
was false.

The brave report of Professor Hare led to a dis-
graceful persecution of that venerable savant, who was
at that moment, with the exception of Agassiz, the
best-known man of science in America. The pro-
fessors of Harvard a university which has a most
unenviable record in psychic matters passed a reso-
lution denouncing him and his " insane adherence to
a gigantic humbug." He could not lose his pro-
fessorial chair at Pennsylvania University because that
had been already resigned, but he suffered much in
loss of reputation.

The crowning and most absurd instance of scien-
tific intolerance an intolerance which has always been
as violent and unreasonable as that of the mediaeval
Church was shown by the American Scientific Asso-
ciation. This learned body howled down Professor
Hare when he attempted to address them, and put it
on record that the subject was unworthy of their
attention. It was remarked, however, by the Spiritu-
alists, that the same society at the same session held an
animated debate as to why cocks crow between twelve
139

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

and one at night, coming finally to the conclusion that
at that particular hour a wave of electricity passes over
the earth from north to south, and that the fowls, dis-
turbed out of their slumbers and " being naturally of
a crowing disposition," register the event in this
fashion. It had not then been learned and perhaps
it has hardly been learned yet that a man, or a body
of men, may be very wise upon those subjects on which
they are experts, and yet show an extraordinary want
of common sense when faced with a new proposition
which calls for a complete readjustment of ideas.
British science and, indeed, science the whole world
over, have shown the same intolerance and want of
elasticity which marked those early days in America.
These days have been drawn so fully by Mrs.
Hardinge Britten, who herself played a large part in
them, that those who are interested can always follow
them in her pages. Some notes about Mrs. Britten
herself may, however, be fitly introduced at this
place, for no history of Spiritualism could be com-
plete without an account of this remarkable woman
who has been called the female St. Paul of the move-
ment. She was a young Englishwoman who had
gone to New York with a theatrical company, and
had then, with her mother, remained in America.
Being strictly Evangelical she was much repelled by
what she considered the unorthodox views of Spiritu-
alists, and fled in horror from her first stance. Later,
in 1856, she was again brought into contact with the
subject and received proofs which made it impossible
for her to doubt its truth. She soon discovered that

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

she was herself a powerful medium, and one of the
best attested and most sensational cases in the early
history of the movement was that in which she re-
ceived intimation that the mail steamer Pacifc had
gone down in mid-Atlantic with all souls, and was
threatened with prosecution by the owners of the
boat for repeating what had been told her by the
returning spirit of one of the crew. The information
proved to be only too true, and the vessel was never
heard of again.

Mrs. Emma Hardinge who became, by a second
marriage, Mrs. Hardinge Britten threw her whole
enthusiastic temperament into the young movement
and left a mark upon it which is still visible. She
was an ideal propagandist, for she combined every
gift. She was a strong medium, an orator, a writer,
a well-balanced thinker and a hardy traveller. Year
after year she travelled the length and breadth of the
United States proclaiming the new doctrine amid much
opposition, for she was militant and anti-Christian in
the views which she professed to get straight from her
spirit guides. As these views were, however, that the
morals of the Churches were far too lax and that a
higher standard was called for, it is not likely that
the Founder of Christianity would have been among
her critics. These opinions of Mrs. Hardinge Britten
had^more to do with the broadly Unitarian view of the
official Spiritualist bodies, which still exists, than any
other cause.

In 1866 she returned to England, where she
worked indefatigably, producing her two great chron-

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

icles, " Modern American Spiritualism " and, later,
" Nineteenth Century Miracles," both of which show
an amazing amount of research together with a very
clear and logical mind. In 1870 she married Dr.
Britten, as strong a Spiritualist as herself. The mar-
riage seems to have been an ideally happy one. In
1878 they went together as missionaries for Spiritual-
ism to Australia and New Zealand, and stayed there
for several years, founding various churches and
societies which the author found still holding their own
when he visited the Antipodes forty years later upon
the same errand. While in Australia she wrote her
" Faiths, Facts and Frauds of Religious History," a
book which still influences many minds. There was
at that time undoubtedly a close connexion between
the free thought movement and the new spirit revela-
tion. The Hon. Robert Stout, Attorney-General of
New Zealand, was both President of the Free Thought
Association and an ardent Spiritualist. It is more
clearly understood now, however, that spirit inter-
course and teaching are too wide to be fitted into any
system, whether negative or positive, and that it is
possible for a Spiritualist to profess any creed so long
as he has the essentials of reverence to the unseen and
unselfishness to those around him.

Among other monuments of her energy, Mrs.
Hardinge Britten founded The Two Worlds of Man-
chester, which has still as large a circulation as any
Spiritualistic paper in the world. She passed onwards
in 1899, having left her mark deep upon the religious
life of three continents.

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

This has been a long but necessary digression from
the account of the early days of American progress.
Those early days were marked by great enthusiasm,
much success, and also considerable persecution. All
the leaders who had anything to lose lost it. Mrs.
Hardinge says :

Judge Edmonds was pointed at in the streets as a crazy
Spiritualist. Wealthy merchants were compelled to assert
their claims to be considered sane and maintain their
commercial rights by the most firm and determined action.
Professional men and tradesmen were reduced to the limits
of ruin, and a relentless persecution, originated by the Press
and maintained by the pulpit, directed the full flow of its
evil tides against the cause and its representatives. Many
of the houses where circles were being held were disturbed
by crowds who would gather together after nightfall and
with yells, cries, whistles and occasional breaking of
windows try to molest the quiet investigators in their
unholy work of " waking the dead," as one of the papers
piously denominated the act of seeking for the " Ministry of
Angels."

Passing the smaller ebb and flow of the movement,
the rising of new true mediums, the exposure of occa-
sional false ones, the committees of inquiry (negatived
often by the want of perception of the inquirers that
a psychic circle depends for success upon the psychic
condition of all its members), the development of
fresh phenomena and the conversion of new initiates,
there are a few outstanding incidents of those early
days which should be particularly noted. Prominent
among them is the mediumship of D. D. Home, and
of the two Davenport boys, which form such important

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

episodes, and attracted public attention to such a
degree and for so long a time, that they are
treated in separate chapters. There are, however,
certain lesser mediumships which call for a shorter
notice.

One of these was that of Linton, the blacksmith, a
man who was quite illiterate and yet, like A. J. Davis,
wrote a remarkable book under alleged spirit control.
This book of 530 pages, called " The Healing of the
Nations," is certainly a remarkable production what-
ever its source, and it is obviously impossible that it
could have been normally produced by such an author.
It is adorned by a very long preface from the pen of
Governor Tallmadge, which shows that the worthy
senator was no mean student of antiquity. The case
from the point of view of the classics and the early
Church has seldom been better stated.

In 1857 Harvard University again made itself
notorious by the persecution and expulsion of a
student named Fred Willis, for the practice of medium-
ship. It would almost seem that the spirit of Cotton
Mather and the old witch-finders of Salem had
descended upon the great Boston seat of learning, for
in those early days it was constantly at issue with
those unseen forces which no one can hope to conquer.
This matter began by an intemperate attempt upon
the part of a Professor Eustis to prove that Willis was
fraudulent, whereas all the evidence shows clearly that
he was a true sensitive, who shrank greatly from any
public use of his powers. The matter caused con-
siderable excitement and scandal at the time. This

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

and other cases of hard usage may be cited, but it must
nevertheless be acknowledged that the hope of gain
on the one hand, and the mental effervescence caused
by so terrific a revelation on the other, did at this
period lead to a degree of dishonesty in some so-called
mediums, and to fanatical excesses and grotesque
assertions in others, which held back that immediate
success which the more sane and steady Spiritualists
expected and deserved.

One curious phase of mediumship which attracted
much attention was that of a farmer, Jonathan Koons
and his family, living in a wild district of Ohio. The
phenomena obtained by the Eddy brothers are dis-
cussed at some length in a subsequent chapter, and as
those of the Koons family were much on the same lines
they need not be treated in detail. The use of musical
instruments came largely into the demonstrations
of spirit force, and the Koons's log-house became
celebrated through all the adjoining states so cele-
brated that it was constantly crowded, although it was
situated some seventy miles from the nearest town. It
would appear to have been a case of true physical
mediumship of a crude quality, as might be expected
where a rude uncultured farmer was the physical
centre of it. Many investigations were held, but the
facts always remained untouched by criticism. Even-
tually, however, Koons and his family were driven
from their home by the persecution of the ignorant
people among whom they lived. The rude open-air
life of the farmer seems to be particularly adapted to
the development of strong physical mediumship. It

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

was in an American farmer's household that it first
developed, and Koons in Ohio, the Eddys in Vermont,
Foss in Massachusetts, and many others, have shown
the same powers.

We may fitly end this short review of the early days
in America by an event where spirit intervention
proved to be of importance in the world's history.
This was the instance of the inspired messages which
determined the action of Abraham Lincoln at the
supreme moment of the Civil War. The facts are
beyond dispute, and are given with the corroborative
evidence in Mrs. Maynard's book on Abraham
Lincoln. Mrs. Maynard's maiden name was Nettie
Colburn, and she was herself the heroine of the
story.

The young lady was a powerful trance medium,
and she visited Washington in the winter of 1862 in
order to see her brother who was in the hospital of the
Federal Army. Mrs. Lincoln, the wife of the Presi-
dent, who was interested in Spiritualism, had a sitting
with Miss Colburn, was enormously impressed by the
result, and sent a carriage next day to bring the
medium to see the President. She describes the
kindly way in which the great man received her in
the parlour of the White House, and mentions the
names of those who were present. She sat down,
passed into the usual trance, and remembered no
more. She continued thus:

For more than an hour I was made to talk to him,
and I learned from my friends afterwards that it was upon
matters that he seemed fully to understand, while they com-
146

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

prehended very little until that portion was reached that
related to the forthcoming Emancipation Proclamation.
He was charged with the utmost solemnity and force of
manner not to abate the terms of its issue and not to delay
its enforcement as a law beyond the opening of the year;
and he was assured that it was to be the crowning event
of his administration and his life ; and that while he was
being counselled by strong parties to defer the enforce-
ment of it, hoping to supplant it by other measures and to
delay action, he must in no wise heed such counsel, but
stand firm to his convictions and fearlessly perform the
work and fulfil the mission for which he had been raised up
by an overruling Providence. Those present declared
that they lost sight of the timid girl in the majesty of the
utterance, the strength and force of the language, and the
importance of that which was conveyed, and seemed to
realize that some strong masculine spirit force was giving
speech to almost divine commands.

I shall never forget the scene around me when I re-
gained consciousness. I was standing in front of Mr.
Lincoln, and he was sitting back in his chair, with his arms
folded upon his breast, looking intently at me. I stepped
back, naturally confused at the situation not remembering
at once where I was ; and glancing around the group where
perfect silence reigned. It took me a moment to remember
my whereabouts.

A gentleman present then said in a low tone, " Mr.
President, did you notice anything peculiar in the method
of address ? " Mr. Lincoln raised himself, as if shaking
off his spell. He glanced quickly at the full-length por-
trait of Daniel Webster that hung above the piano, and
replied: " Yes, and it is very singular, very! " with a marked
emphasis.

Mr. Somes said : " Mr. President, would it be improper
for me to inquire whether there has been any pressure
147

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

brought to bear upon you to defer the enforcement of
the Proclamation ? " To which the President replied :
" Under these circumstances that question is perfectly
proper, as we are all friends." (Smiling upon the company).
" It is taking all my nerve and strength to withstand such
a pressure." At this point the gentlemen drew around
him and spoke together in low tones, Mr. Lincoln saying
least of all. At last he turned to me, and laying his hand
upon my head, uttered these words in a manner I shall
never forget. " My child, you possess a very singular
gift, but that it is of God I have no doubt. I thank you
for coming here to-night. It is more important than per-
haps anyone present can understand. I must leave you all
now, but I hope I shall see you again." He shook me kindly
by the hand, bowed to the rest of the company, and was
gone. We remained an hour longer, talking with Mrs.
Lincoln and her friends, and then returned to Georgetown.
Such was my first interview with Abraham Lincoln, and
the memory of it is as clear and vivid as the evening on
which it occurred.

This was one of the most important instances in the
history of Spiritualism, and may also have been one of
the most important in the history of the United States,
as it not only strengthened the President in taking a
step which raised the whole moral tone of the Northern
armies and put something of the crusading spirit into
the men, but a subsequent message urged Lincoln to
visit the camps, which he did with the best effect upon
the moral of the army. And yet the reader might, I
fear, search every history of the great struggle and
every life of the President without finding a mention
of this vital episode. It is all part of that unfair
treatment which Spiritualism has endured so long.
148

FIRST DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA

It is impossible that the United States, if it appreci-
ated the truth, would allow the cult which proved its
value at the darkest moment of its history to be
persecuted and repressed by ignorant policemen and
bigoted magistrates in the way which is now so com-
mon, or that the Press should continue to make mock
of the movement which produced the Joan of Arc of
their country.

149

CHAPTER VII

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

* I ''HE early Spiritualists have frequently been
I compared with the early Christians, and there
* are indeed many points of resemblance. In one
respect, however, the Spiritualists had an advantage.
The women of the older dispensation did their part
nobly, living as saints and dying as martyrs, but they
did not figure as preachers and missionaries. Psychic
power and psychic knowledge are, however, as great
in one sex as in another, and therefore many of the
great pioneers of the spiritual revelation were women.
Especially may this be claimed for Emma Hardinge
Britten, one whose name will grow more famous as the
years roll by. There have, however, been several
other women missionaries outstanding, and the most
important of these from the British point of view is
Mrs. Hayden, who first in the year 1852 brought the
new phenomena to these shores. We had of old the
Apostles of religious faith. Here at last was an apostle
of religious fact.

Mrs. Hayden was a remarkable woman as well as
an excellent medium. She was the wife of a respect-
able New England journalist who accompanied her in
her mission, which had been organized by one Stone,
who had some experience of her powers in America.
150

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

At the time of her visit she was described as being
" young, intelligent, and at the same time simple and
candid in her manners." Her British critic added :

She disarmed suspicion by the unaffected artlessness
of her address, and many who came to amuse themselves
at her expense were shamed into respect and even cor-
diality by the patience and good temper which she dis-
played. The impression invariably left by an interview
with her was that if, as Mr. Dickens contended, the phe-
nomena developed by her were attributed to art, she herself
was the most perfect artist, as far as acting went, that had
ever presented herself before the public.

The ignorant British Press treated Mrs. Hayden
as a common American adventuress. Her real mental
calibre, however, may be judged from the fact that
some years later, after her return to the United States,
Mrs. Hayden graduated as a doctor of medicine
and practised for fifteen years. Dr. James Rodes
Buchanan, the famous pioneer in psychometry, speaks
of her as " one of the most skilful and successful
physicians I have ever known." She was offered a
medical professorship in an American college, and was
employed by the Globe Insurance Company in pro-
tecting the company against losses in insurance on
lives. A feature of her success was what Buchanan
describes as her psychometric genius. He adds a
unique tribute to the effect that her name was almost
forgotten at the Board of Health because for years she
had not a single death to report.

This sequel, however, was beyond the knowledge
of the sceptics of 1852, and they cannot be blamed for

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

insisting that these strange claims of other-world
intervention should be tested with the utmost rigour
before they could be admitted. No one could con-
test this critical attitude. But what does seem strange
is that a proposition which, if true, would involve such
glad tidings as the piercing of the wall of death and a
true communion of the saints, should arouse not sober
criticism, however exacting, but a storm of insult and
abuse, inexcusable at any time, but particularly so
when directed against a lady who was a visitor in our
midst. Mrs. Hardinge Britten says that Mrs. Hayden
no sooner appeared upon the scene than the leaders of
the Press, pulpit and college levelled against her a
storm of ribaldry, persecution and insult, alike dis-
graceful to themselves and humiliating to the boasted
liberalism and scientific acumen of their age. She
added that her gentle womanly spirit must have been
deeply pained, and the harmony of mind so essential
to the production of good psychological results con-
stantly destroyed, by the cruel and insulting treatment
she received at the hands of many of those who came,
pretending to be investigators, but in reality burning
to thwart her, and laying traps to falsify the truths of
which Mrs. Hayden professed to be the instrument.
Sensitively alive to the animus of her visitors, she could
feel, and often writhed under the crushing force of
the antagonism brought to bear upon her, without
at that time knowing how to repel or resist it.

At the same time, the whole nation was not in-
volved in this irrational hostility, which in a diluted
form we still see around us. Brave men arose who

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

were not afraid to imperil their worldly career, or even
their reputation for sanity, by championing an un-
popular cause with no possible motive save the love of
truth and that sense of chivalry which revolted at the
persecution of a woman. Dr. Ashburner, one of the
Royal physicians, and Sir Charles Isham, were among
those who defended the medium in the public Press.
Mrs. Hayden's mediumship seems, when judged
by modern standards, to have been strictly limited in
type. Save for the raps, we hear little of physical
phenomena, nor is there any question of lights,
materializations or Direct Voices. In harmonious com-
pany, however, the answers as furnished by raps were
very accurate and convincing. Like all true mediums,
she was sensitive to discord in her surroundings, with
the result that the contemptible crew of practical jokers
and ill-natured researchers who visited her found her
a ready victim. Deceit is repaid by deceit and the
fool is answered according to his folly, though the
intelligence behind the words seems to care little for
the fact that the passive instrument employed may be
held accountable for the answer. These pseudo-
researchers filled the Press with their humorous
accounts of how they had deceived the spirits, when
as a fact they had rather deceived themselves. George
Henry Lewes, afterwards consort of George Eliot, was
one of these cynical investigators. He recounts with
glee how he had asked the control in writing: " Is
Mrs. Hayden an impostor ? " to which the control
rapped out: " Yes." Lewes was dishonest enough to
quote this afterwards as being a confession of guilt

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

from Mrs. Hayden. One would rather draw from it
the inference that the raps were entirely independent
of the medium, and also that questions asked in a spirit
of pure frivolity met with no serious reply.

It is, however, by the positives and not by the
negatives that such questions must be judged, and the
author must here use quotations to a larger extent than
is his custom, for in no other way can one bring home
how those seeds were first planted in England which
are destined to grow to such a goodly height. Allu-
sion has already been made to the testimony of Dr.
Ashburner, the famous physician, and it would be
well perhaps to add some of his actual words. He
says : *

Sex ought to have protected her from injury, if you
gentlemen of the Press have no regard to the hospitable
feelings due to one of your own cloth, for Mrs. Hayden is
the wife of a former editor and proprietor of a journal in
Boston having a most extensive circulation in New England.
I declare to you that Mrs. Hayden is no impostor, and he
who has the daring to come to an opposite conclusion must
do so at the peril of his character for truth.

Again, in a long letter to The Reasoner^ after
admitting that he visited the medium in a thoroughly
incredulous frame of mind, expecting to witness " the
same class of transparent absurdities " he had pre-
viously encountered with other so-called mediums,
Ashburner writes: " As for Mrs. Hayden, I have so
strong a conviction of her perfect honesty that I
marvel at anyone who could deliberately accuse her

* The Leader, March 14, 1853. t June i and 8, 1853.

J S4

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

of fraud," and at the same time he gives detailed
accounts of veridical communications he received.

Among the investigators was the celebrated mathe-
matician and philosopher, Professor De Morgan. He
gives some account of his experiences and conclusions
in his long and masterly preface to his wife's book,
" From Matter to Spirit," 1863, as follows:

Ten years ago Mrs. Hayden, the well-known American
medium, came to my house alone. The sitting began imme-
diately after her arrival. Eight or nine persons of all ages,
and of all degrees of belief and unbelief in the whole thing
being imposture, were present. The raps began in the usual
way. They were to my ear clean, clear, faint sounds such
as would be said to ring, had they lasted. I likened them
at the time to the noise which the ends of knitting-needles
would make, if dropped from a small distance upon a marble
slab, and instantly checked by a damper of some kind ;
and subsequent trial showed that my description was toler-
ably accurate. ... At a late period in the evening,
after nearly three hours of experiment, Mrs. Hayden
having risen, and talking at another table while taking
refreshment, a child suddenly called out, " Will all the
spirits who have been here this evening rap together ? "
The words were no sooner uttered than a hailstorm of
knitting-needles was heard, crowded into certainly less
than two seconds ; 4 the big needle sounds of the men, and
the little ones of the women and children, being clearly
distinguishable, but perfectly disorderly in their arrival.

After a remark to the effect that for convenience
he intends to speak of the raps as coming from spirits,
Professor De Morgan goes on :

On being asked to put a question to the first spirit,
I begged that I might be allowed to put my question men-

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

tally that is, without speaking it, or writing it, or pointing
it out to myself on an alphabet and that Mrs. Hayden
might hold both arms extended while the answer was in
progress. Both demands were instantly granted by a
couple of raps. I put the question and desired the answer
might be in one word, which I assigned ; all mentally.
I then took the printed alphabet, put a book upright before
it, and, bending my eyes upon it, proceeded to point to
the letters in the usual way. The word " chess " was
given by a rap at each letter. I had now a reasonable
certainty of the following alternative : either some thought-
reading of a character wholly inexplicable, or such super-
human acuteness on the part of Mrs. Hayden that she
could detect the letter I wanted by my bearing, though
she (seated six feet from the book which hid my
alphabet) could see neither my hand nor my eye, nor at
what rate I was going through the letters. I was fated
to be driven out of the second alternative before the sitting
was done.

As the next incident of the sitting, which he goes
on to relate, is given with extra details in a letter
written ten years earlier to the Rev. W. Heald, we
quote this version published in his wife's " Memoir
of Augustus De Morgan" (pp. 221-2):

Presently came my father(ob.> 1816), and after some
conversation I went on as follows :

" Do you remember a periodical I have in my head ? "
" Yes." " Do you remember the epithets therein applied
to yourself ? " " Yes." " Will you give me the initials
of them by the card ? " " Yes." I then began pointing
to the alphabet, with a book to conceal the card, Mrs. H.
being at the opposite side of a round table (large), and a
bright lamp between us. I pointed letter by letter till
I came to F, which I thought should be the first initial.
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No rapping. The people round me said, " You have
passed it ; there was a rapping at the beginning." I went
back and heard the rapping distinctly at C. This puzzled
me, but in a moment I saw what it was. The sentence was
begun by the rapping agency earlier than I intended.
I allowed C to pass, and then got D T F O C, being the
initials of the consecutive words which I remembered to
have been applied to my father in an old review published
in 1817, which no one in the room had ever heard of but
myself. C D T F O C was all right, and when I got so
far I gave it up, perfectly satisfied that something, or some-
body, or some spirit, was reading my thoughts. This and the
like went on for nearly three hours, during a great part of
which Mrs. H. was busy reading the " Key to Uncle Tom's
Cabin," which she had never seen before, and I assure you
she set to it with just as much avidity as you may suppose
an American lady would who saw it for the first time,
while we were amusing ourselves with the raps in our own
way. All this I declare to be literally true. Since that time
I have seen it in my house frequently, various persons pre-
senting themselves. The answers are given mostly by
the table, on which a hand or two is gently placed, tilting
up at the letters. There is much which is confused m
the answers, but every now and then comes something
which surprises us. I have no theory about it, but in a year
or two something curious may turn up. I am, however,
satisfied of the reality of the phenomenon. A great many
other persons are as cognizant of these phenomena in their
own houses as myself. Make what you can of it if you are
a "philosopher.

When Professor De Morgan says that some

spirit was reading his thoughts, he omits to observe

that the incident of the first letter was evidence of

something that was not in his mind. Also, from Mrs.

157

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Hayden's attitude throughout the stance, it is clear that
it was her atmosphere rather than her actual conscious
personality which was concerned. Some further
important evidence from the De Morgans is relegated
to the Appendix.

Mrs. Fitzgerald, a well-known figure in the early
days of Spiritualism in London, gives, in The Spiritual-
ist of November 22, 1878, the following very striking
experience with Mrs. Hayden :

My first introduction to Spiritualism commenced at
the time of the first visit of the well-known medium, Mrs.
Hayden, to this country nearly thirty years ago. I was
invited to meet her at a party given by a friend in Wimpole
Street, London. Having made a pre-engagement for that
evening, which I could not avoid, I arrived late, after what
appeared an extraordinary scene, of which they were all
talking with great animation. My look of blank disap-
pointment was noticed, and Mrs. Hayden, whom I then
met for the first time, came most kindly forward, expressed
her regrets, and suggested that I should sit at a small table
by myself apart from the others, and she would ask the spirits
if they would communicate with me. All this appeared so
new and surprising I scarcely understood what she was
talking about, or what I had to expect. She placed before
me a printed alphabet, a pencil, and a piece of paper.
Whilst she was in the act of doing this, I felt extraordinarily
rappings all over the table, the vibrations from which I
could feel on the sole of my foot as it rested against the
table's leg. She then directed me to note down each letter
at which I heard a distinct rap, and with this short explana-
tion she left me to myself. I pointed as desired a dis-
tinct rap came at the letter E others followed, and a name
that I could not fail to recognize was spelt out. The date
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of death was given, which I had not before known, and a
message added which brought back to my memory the
almost last dying words of an old friend namely, " I shall
watch over you." And then the recollection of the whole
scene was brought vividly before me. I confess I was
startled and somewhat awed.

I carried the paper upon which all this was written at
the dictation of my spirit friend to his former legal adviser,
and was assured by him that the dates, etc., were perfectly
correct. They could not have been in my mind because I
was not aware of them.

It is interesting to note that Mrs. Fitzgerald stated
that she believed that Mrs. Hayden's first se'ance in
England was held with Lady Combermere, her son,
Major Cotton, and Mr. Henry Thompson, of York.

In the same volume of The Spiritualist (p. 264)
there appears an account of a se'ance with Mrs. Hayden,
taken from the life of Charles Young, the well-known
tragedian, written by his son, the Rev. Julian Young :

1853, April lyth. I went up to London this day for
the purpose of consulting my lawyers on a subject of some
importance to myself, and having heard much of a Mrs.
Hayden, an American lady, as a spiritual medium, I re-
solved, as I was in town, to discover her whereabouts, and
judge of her gifts for myself. Accidentally meeting an old
friend, Mr. H., I asked him if he could give me her address.
He told me that it was 22, Queen Anne Street, Cavendish
Square. As he had never been in her company, and had
a great wish to see her, and yet was unwilling to pay his
guinea for the treat, I offered to frank him, if he would go
with me. He did so gladly. Spirit-rapping has been so
common since 1853 that I should irritate my reader's
patience by describing the conventional mode of com-

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

municating between the living and the dead. Since the
above date I have seen very much of spirit-rapping ; and
though my organs of wonder are largely developed, and I
have a weakness for the mystic and supernatural, yet I
cannot say that I have ever witnessed any spiritual pheno-
mena which were not explicable on natural grounds,
except in the instance I am about to give, in which collusion
appeared to be out of the question, the friend who accom-
panied me never having seen Mrs. Hayden, and she know-
ing neither his name nor mine. The following dialogue
took place between Mrs. H. and myself :

Mrs. H. : Have you, sir, any wish to communicate
with the spirit of any departed friend ?

J. C. Y. : Yes.

Mrs. H. : Be pleased then to ask your questions in
the manner prescribed by the formula, and I dare say you
will get satisfactory replies.

J. C. Y. : (Addressing himself to one invisible yet
supposed to be present) : Tell me the name of the person
with whom I wish to communicate.

The letters written down according to the dictation
of the taps when put together spelt " George William
Young."

J. C. Y. : On whom are my thoughts now fixed ?

A. : Frederick William Young.

J. C. Y. : What is he suffering from ?

A. : Tic douloureux.

J. C. Y. : Can you prescribe anything for him ?

A. : Powerful mesmerism.

J. C. Y. : Who should be the administrator ?

A. : Someone who has strong sympathy with the
patient.

J. C. Y. : Should I succeed ?

A. : No.

J. C. Y. : Who would ?
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A. : Joseph Ries. (A gentleman whom my uncle
much respected.)

J. C. Y. : Have I lost any friend lately ?

A.: Yes.

J. C. Y. : Who is it ? (I thinking of a Miss Young,
a distant cousin.)

A. : Christiana Lane.

J. C. Y. : Can you tell me where I sleep to-night ?

A.-: James B.'s, Esq., 9 Clarges Street.

J. C. Y. : Where do I sleep to-morrow ?

A. : Colonel Weymouth's, Upper Grosvenor Street.

I was so astounded by the correctness of the answers
I received to my inquiries that I told the gentleman who was
with me that I wanted particularly to ask a question to
the nature of which I did not wish him to be privy, and that
I should be obliged to him if he would go into the adjoining
room for a few minutes. On his doing so I resumed my
dialogue with Mrs. Hayden.

J. C. Y. : I have induced my friend to withdraw
because I did not wish him to know the question I want to
put, but I am equally anxious that you should not know it
either, and yet, if I understand rightly, no answer can be
transmitted to me except through you. What is to be done
under these circumstances ?

Mrs. H. : Ask your question in such a form that the
answer returned shall represent by one word the salient idea
in your mind.

J. C. Y. : I will try. Will what I am threatened
with take place ?

A. : No.

J. C. Y. : That is unsatisfactory. It is easy to say
Yes or No, but the value of the affirmation or negation will
depend on the conviction I have that you know what I
am thinking of. Give me one word which shall show that
you have the clue to my thoughts.

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

A. : Will.

Now, a will by which I had benefited was threatened
to be disputed. I wished to know whether the threat
would be carried out. The answer I received was correct.

It may be added that Mr. Young had no belief,
before or after this sdance, in spirit agency, which
surely, after such an experience, is no credit to his
intelligence or capacity for assimilating fresh know-
ledge.

The following letter in The Spiritualist from Mr.
John Malcom, of Clifton, Bristol, mentions some well-
known sitters. Discussing the question that had been
raised as to where the first seance in England was held
and who were the witnesses present at it, he says :

I do not remember the date ; but calling on my friend
Mrs. Crowe, authoress of " The Night Side of Nature,"
she invited me to accompany her to a spiritual stance at
the house of Mrs. Hayden in Queen Anne Street, Caven-
dish Square. She informed me that Mrs. Hayden had
just arrived from America to exhibit the phenomena of
Spiritualism to people in England who might feel interested
in the subject. There were present Mrs. Crowe, Mrs
Milner Gibson, Mr. Colley Grattan (author of " High
Ways and Bye Ways"), Mr. Robert Chambers, Dr. Daniels,
Dr. Samuel Dickson, and several others whose names I did
not hear. Some very remarkable manifestations occurred
on that occasion. I afterwards had frequent opportunities
of visiting Mrs. Hayden, and, though at first disposed to
doubt the genuineness of the phenomena, such convincing
evidence was given me of spirit communion that I became
a firm believer in the truth of it.

The battle in the British Press raged furiously.
In the columns of the London Critic 9 Mr. Henry

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

Spicer (author of " Sights and Sounds ") replied to
the critics in Household Words, the Leader, and
the Zoist. There followed in the same newspaper a
lengthy contribution from a Cambridge clergyman,
signing himself " M.A.," considered to be the Rev.
A. W. Hobson, of St. John's College, Cambridge.

This gentleman's description is graphic and power-
ful, but too long for complete transcription. The
matter is of some importance, as the writer is, so far as is
known, the first English clergyman who had gone into
the matter. It is strange, and perhaps characteristic
of the age, how little the religious implications appear
to have struck the various sitters, and how entirely
occupied they were by inquiries as to their grand-
mother's second name or the number of their uncles.
Even the more earnest seem to have been futile in their
questions, and no one shows the least sense of realiza-
tion of the real possibilities of such commerce, or that
a firm foundation for religious belief could at last be
laid. This clergyman did, however, in a purblind
way, see that there was a religious side to the matter.
He finishes his report with the paragraph:

I will conclude with a few words to the numerous
clerical readers of the Critic. Being myself a clergyman
of the Church of England, I consider that the subject
is one in which my brother clergy must, sooner or later,
take some interest, however reluctant they may be to have
anything to do with it. And my reasons are briefly as
follow : If such excitement become general in this country
as already exists in America and what reason have we
to suppose that it will not ? then the clergy throughout the
kingdom will be appealed to on all sides, will have to give
163

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

an opinion, and may probably be obliged, by their very
duties, to interfere and endeavour to prevent the delusions
to which, in many cases, this " mystery " has already led.
One of the most sensible and able writers on the subject
of these spirit manifestations in America, viz., Adin Ballou,
in his work has expressly cautioned his readers not to believe
all these spirits communicate, nor allow themselves to give
up their former opinions and religious creeds (as so many
thousands have done) at the bidding of these rappers.
The thing has scarcely begun in England as yet; but already,
within the few months since Mr. and Mrs. Hayden arrived
in London, it has spread like wild-fire, and I have good
reason for saying that the excitement is only commencing.
Persons who at first treated the whole affair as a contemp-
tible imposture and humbug, on witnessing these strange
things for themselves, become first startled and astonished,
then rush blindly into all sorts of mad conclusions as,
for instance, that it is all the work of the devil, or (in the
opposite degree) that it is a new revelation from Heaven.
I see scores of the most able and intelligent people whom I
know utterly and completely mystified by it ; and no one
knows what to make of it. I am ready to confess, for my
own part, that I am equally mystified. That it is not im-
posture, I feel perfectly and fully convinced. In addition
to the tests, etc., above-named, I had a long conversation
in private with both Mr. and Mrs. Hayden separately,
and everything they said bore the marks of sincerity and
good faith. Of course, this is no evidence to other people,
but it is to me. If there is any deception, they are as much
deceived as any of their dupes.

It was not the clergy but the Free Thinkers who
perceived the real meaning of the message, and that
they must either fight against this proof of life eternal,
or must honestly confess, as so many of us have done

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TEE DAWN IN ENGLAND

since, that their philosophy was shattered, and that
they had been beaten on their own ground. These
men had called for prooj : s'm transcendent matters, and
the more honest and earnest were forced to admit that
they had had them. The noblest of them all was
Robert Owen, as famous for his humanitarian works
as for his sturdy independence in religious matters.
This brave and honest man declared publicly that the
first rays of this rising sun had struck him and had
gilded the drab future which he had pictured. He
said :

I have patiently traced the history of these manifesta-
tions, investigated the facts connected with them (testified
to in innumerable instances by persons of high character),
have had fourteen stances with the medium Mrs. Hayden,
during which she gave me every opportunity to ascertain
if it were possible there could be any deception on her
part.

I am not only convinced that there is no deception
with truthful media in these proceedings, but that they are
destined to effect, at this period, the greatest moral revolu-
tion in the character and condition of the human race.

Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten comments on the
interest and astonishment created by the conversion
of Robert Owen, the influence of whose purely mate-
rialistic belief was regarded as exerting an injurious
effect on religion. She says that one of England's
most prominent statesmen declared " that Mrs. Hay-
den deserved a monument, if only for the conversion
of Robert Owen."

Shortly afterwards the famous Dr. Elliotson, who
was the president of the Secular Society, was also con-
165

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

verted after, like St. Paul, violently assailing the new
revelation. He and Dr. Ashburner had been two of
the most prominent supporters of mesmerism in the
days when even that obvious phenomenon had to
fight for its existence, and when every medical man
who affirmed it was in danger of being called a quack.
It was painful to both of them, therefore, when Dr.
Ashburner threw himself into this higher subject with
enthusiasm, while his friend was constrained not only
to reject but actively to attack it. However, the
breach was healed by the complete conversion of
Elliotson, and Mrs. Hardinge Britten relates how in his
declining years he insisted upon her coming to him,
and how she found him a "warm adherent of Spiritual-
ism, a faith which the venerable gentleman cherished
as the brightest revelation that had ever been vouch-
safed to him, and one which finally smoothed the dark
passage to the life beyond, and made his transition a
scene of triumphant faith and joyful anticipation."

As might have been expected, it was not long
before the rapid growth of table phenomena com-
pelled scientific sceptics to recognize their existence,
or at least to take steps to expose the delusion of those
who attributed to the movements an external origin.
Braid, Carpenter, and Faraday stated publicly that the
results obtained were due simply to unconscious mus-
cular action. Faraday devised ingenious apparatus
which he considered conclusively proved his assertion.
But, like so many other critics, Faraday had had no
experience with a good medium, and the well-
attested fact of the movement of tables without con-

166

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

tact is sufficient to demolish his pretty theories. If
one could imagine a layman without a telescope con-
tradicting with jeers and contempt the conclusions of
those astronomers who had used telescopes, it would
present some analogy to those people who have ven-
tured to criticize psychic matters without having had
any personal psychic experience.

The contemporary spirit is no doubt voiced by Sir
David Brewster. Speaking of an invitation from
Monckton Milnes to meet Mr. Galla, the African
traveller, " who assured him that Mrs. Hayden told
him the names of persons and places in Africa which
nobody but himself knew," Sir David comments,
" The world is obviously going mad."

Mrs. Hayden remained in England about a year,
returning to America towards the close of 1853.
Some day, when these matters have found their true
proportion to other events, her visit will be regarded
as historical and epoch-making. Two other American
mediums were in England during her visit Mrs.
Roberts and Miss Jay having followed shortly after,
but they appear to have had little influence on the
movement, and seem to have been very inferior in
psychic power.

A contemporary sidelight on those early days is
afforded by this extract from an article on Spiritual-
ism in The Yorkshireman (October 25, 1856), a non-
Spiritualist journal :

The English public in general, we believe, are but
imperfectly acquainted with the nature of the Spiritualist
doctrines, and many of our readers are, doubtless, unpre-

167

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

pared to believe that they prevail to any extent in this
country. The ordinary phenomena of table-moving, etc.,
are, it is true, familiar to most of us. Some two or three
years ago there was not an evening party which did not
essay the performance of a Spiritualist miracle. . . .
In those days you were invited to " Tea and Table Moving "
as a new excitement, and made to revolve with the family
like mad round articles of furniture.

After declaring that Faraday's attack made " the
spirits suddenly subside," so that for a time no more
was heard of their doings, the journal continues :

We have ample evidence, however, that Spiritualism
as a vital and active belief is not confined to the United
States, but that it has found favour and acceptance among
a considerable class of enthusiasts in our own country.

But the general attitude of the influential Press
was much the same then as now ridicule and denial
of the facts, and the view that even if the facts were
true, of what use were they ? The Times, for instance
(a paper which has been very ill-informed and re-
actionary in psychic matters), in a leading article of
a little later date suggests :

It would be something to get one's hat off the peg by
an effort of volition, without going to fetch it, or troubling
a -servant.

If table-power could be made to turn even a coffee-
mill, it would be so much gained.

Let our mediums and clairvoyants, instead of finding
out what somebody died of fifty years ago, find out what
figure the Funds will be at this day three months.

When one reads such comments in a great paper

THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

one wonders whether the movement was not really
premature, and whether in so base and material an age
the idea of outside intervention was not impossible to
grasp. Much of this opposition was due, however,
to the frivolity of inquirers who had not as yet realized
the full significance of these signals from beyond, and
used them, as the Yorkshire paper states, as a sort of
social recreation and a new excitement for jaded
worldlings.

But while in the eyes of the Press the death-blow
had been given to a discredited movement, investiga-
tion went on quietly in many quarters. People of
common sense, as Howitt points out, " were success-
fully testing those angels, under their own mode of
advent, and finding them real," for, as he well says,
"public mediums have never done more than in-
augurate the movement."

If one were to judge from the public testimony of
the time, Mrs. Hayden's influence might be considered
to have been limited in extent. To the public at large
she was only a nine days' wonder, but she scattered
much seed which slowly grew. The fact is, she opened
the subject up, and people, mostly in the humbler
walks of life, began to experiment and to discover the
truth for themselves, though, with a caution born of
experience, they kept their discoveries for the most
part to themselves. Mrs. Hayden, without doubt,
fulfilled her ordained task.

The history of the movement may well be com-
pared to an advancing sea with its successive crests
and troughs, each crest gathering more volume than
169

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

the last. With every trough the spectator has thought
that the waves had ended, and then the great new
billow gathered. The time between the leaving of
Mrs. Hayden in 1 853 until the advent of D. D. Home
in 1855 represents the first lull in England. Super-
ficial critics thought it was the end. But in a thousand
homes throughout the land experiments were being
carried on; many who had lost all faith in the things
of the spirit, in what was perhaps the deadest and most
material age in the world's history, had begun to exam-
ine the evidence and to understand with relief or with
awe that the age of faith was passing and that the age
of knowledge, which St. Peter has said to be better,
was at hand. Devout students of the Scriptures
remember the words of their Master: " I have yet
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now," and wondered whether these strange
stirrings of outside forces might not be part of that
new knowledge which had been promised.

Whilst Mrs. Hayden had thus planted the first
seeds in London, a second train of events had brought
spiritual phenomena under the notice of the people of
Yorkshire. This was due to a visit of a Mr. David
Richmond, an American Shaker, to the town of
Keighley, when he called upon Mr. David Weather-
head and interested him in the new development.
Table manifestations were obtained and local mediums
discovered, so that a flourishing centre was built up
which still exists. From Yorkshire the movement
spread over Lancashire, and it is an interesting link
with the past that Mr. Wolstenholme, of Blackburn,
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THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

who died in 1925 at a venerable age, was able as
a boy to secrete himself under a table at one of
these early stances, where he witnessed, though we
will hope that he did not aid, the phenomena. A
paper, The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph, was started
at Keighley in 1855, this and other expenses being
borne by David Weatherhead, whose name should be
honoured as one who was the first to throw his whole
heart into the movement. Keighley is still an active
centre of psychic work and knowledge.

M"

CHAPTER VIII

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

[RS. DE MORGAN'S account of ten years'
experience of Spiritualism covers the ground
1 from 1853 to 1863, The appearance of this
book, with the weighty preface by Professor De Mor-
gan, was one of the first signs that the new movement
was spreading upwards as well as among the masses.
Then came the work of D. D. Home and of the
Davenports, which is detailed elsewhere. The exam-
ination of the Dialectical Society began in 1869,
which is also dealt with in a later chapter. The year
1870 was the date of the first researches of William
Crookes, which he undertook after remarking upon
the scandal caused by the refusal of scientific men " to
investigate the existence and nature of facts asserted
by so many competent and credible witnesses." In the
same periodical, the Quarterly Journal of Science, he
spoke of this belief being shared by millions, and
added: " I wish to ascertain the laws governing the
appearance of very remarkable phenomena, which,
at the present time, are occurring to an almost in-
credible extent."

The story of his research was given in full in 1 874,
and caused such a tumult among the more fossilized
men of science those who may be said to have had
172

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

their minds subdued to that at which they worked
that there was some talk of depriving him of his
Fellowship of the Royal Society. The storm blew
over, but Crookes was startled by its violence, and it
was noticeable that for many years, until his position
was impregnable, he was very cautious in any public
expression of his views. In r 872-73, the Rev. Stain-
ton Moses appeared as a new factor, and his automatic
writings raised the subject to a more spiritual plane in
the judgment of many. The phenomenal side may
attract the curious, but when over-emphasized it is
likely to repel the judicious mind.

Public lectures and trance addresses became a
feature. Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, Mrs. Cora
L. V. Tappan, and Mr. J. J. Morse gave eloquent
orations, purporting to come from spirit influence, and
large gatherings were deeply interested. Mr. Gerald
Massey, the well-known poet and writer, and Dr.
George Sexton, also delivered public lectures. Alto-
gether, Spiritualism had much publicity given to it.

The establishment of the British National Associa-
tion of Spiritualists in 1873 ave t ^ ie movement an
impetus, because many well-known public men and
women joined it. Among them may be mentioned
the Countess of Caithness, Mrs. Makdougall Gregory
(widow of Professor Gregory, of Edinburgh), Dr.
Stanhope Speer, Dr. Gully, Sir Charles Isham, Dr.
Maurice Davies, Mr. H. D. Jencken, Dr. George
Sexton, Mrs. Ross Church (Florence Marryat), Mr.
Newton Crosland, and Mr. Benjamin Coleman.

Mediumship of a high order in the department of

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

physical phenomena was supplied by Mrs. Jencken
(Kate Fox) and Miss Florence Cook. Dr. J. R. New-
ton, the famous healing medium from America,
arrived in 1 870, and numbers of extraordinary cures
were registered at free treatments. From 1 870 Mrs.
Everitt's wonderful mediumship exercised, like that
of D. D. Home, without charge, convinced many
influential people. Herne and Williams, Mrs. Guppy,
Eglinton, Slade, Lottie Fowler, and others, secured
many converts through their mediumship. In 1872
Hudson's spirit photographs created enormous in-
terest, and in 1875 Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace pub-
lished his famous book, " On Miracles and Modern
Spiritualism."

A good means of tracing the growth of Spiritual-
ism at this period is to examine the statements of
worthy contemporary witnesses, especially those quali-
fied by position and experience to give an opinion.
But before we glance at the period we are considering,
let us look at the situation in 1866, as viewed by Mr.
William Howitt in a few paragraphs which are so
admirable that the author is constrained to quote
them verbatim. He says:

The present position of Spiritualism in England,
were the Press, with all its influence, omnipotent, would be
hopeless. After having taken every possible means to
damage and sneer down Spiritualism ; after having opened
its columns to it, in the hope that its emptiness and folly
would be so apparent that its clever enemies would soon be
able to knock it on the head by invincible arguments, and
then finding that all the advantages of reason and fact were
on its side ; after having abused and maligned it to no pur-
174

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

pose, the whole Press as by one consent, or by one settled
plan, has adopted the system of opening its columns and
pages to any false or foolish story about it, and hermetically
closing them to any explanation, refutation, or defence.
It is, in fact, resolved, all other means of killing it having
failed, to burke it. To clap a literary pitch-plaster on its
mouth, and then let anyone that likes cut its throat if
he can. By this means it hopes to stamp it out like the
rinderpest. , . .

If anything could annihilate- Spiritualism, its present
estimation by the English public, its treatment by the
Press and the courts of law, its attempted suppression
by all the powers of public intelligence, its hatred by the
heroes of the pulpits of all churches and creeds, the simple
acceptance of even the public folly and wickedness attributed
to it by the Press, its own internal divisions in a word,
its pre-eminent unpopularity would put it out of existence.
But does it ? On the contrary, it never was more firmly
rooted into the mass of advanced minds ; its numbers
never more rapidly increased ; its truths were never more
earnestly and eloquently advocated ; the enquiries after it
never more abundant or more anxious. The soirees in
Harley Street have, through the whole time that Press and
horsehair wig have been heaping every reproach and every
scorn upon it, been crowded to excess by ladies and gentle-
men of the middle and higher classes, who have listened in
admiration to the eloquent and ever-varied addresses of
Emma Hardinge. Meantime, the Davenports, a thousand
times denounced as impostors, and exposed impostors, have
a thousand times shown that their phenomena remain as
unexplainable as ever on any but a spiritual theory.

What means all this ? What does it indicate ? That
Press and pulpit, and magistrate and law courts, have all
tried their powers, and have failed. They stand nonplussed
before the thing which they themselves have protested is

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

poor and foolish and false and unsubstantial If it be so
poor and foolish and false and unsubstantial, how is it
that all their learning, their unscrupulous denunciation,
their vast means of attack and their not less means of pre-
vention of fair defence, their command of the ears and the
opinions of the multitude how happens it that all their
wit and sarcasm and logic and eloquence cannot touch it ?
So far from shaking and diminishing it, they do not even
ruffle a hair on its head, or a fringe of its robe.

Is it not about time for these combined hosts of the
great and wise, the scientific, the learned, the leaders of
senates and colleges and courts of law, the eloquent fav-
ourites of Parliament, the magnates of the popular Press,
furnished with all the intellectual artillery which a great
national system of education, and great national system of
Church and State and aristocracy, accustomed to proclaim
what shall be held to be true and of honourable repute
by all honourable men and women is it not time, I say,
that all this great and splendid world of wit and wisdom
should begin to suspect that they have something solid to
deal with ? That there is something vital in what they
have treated as a phantom ?

I do not say to these great and world-commanding
bodies, powers and agencies, open your eyes and see that
your efforts are fruitless, and acknowledge your defeat,
for probably they never will open their eyes and confess
their shame ; but I say to the Spiritualists themselves, dark
as the day may seem to you, never was it more cheering.
Leagued as all the armies of public instructors and directors
are against it, never was its bearing more anticipatory of
ultimate victory. It has upon it the stamp of all the con-
quering influences of the age. It has all the legitimatism
of history on its head. It is but fighting the battle that
every great reform social or moral or intellectual or
religious has fought and eventually won.
176

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

As showing the change that occurred after Mr.
Howitt wrote in 1 866, we find The Times of December
26, 1872, publishing an article entitled " Spiritualism
and Science," occupying three and a half columns, in
which the opinion is expressed that now "it is high
time competent hands undertook the unravelling of
this Gordian Knot," though why the existing hands
of Crookes, Wallace or De Morgan were incompetent
is not explained.

The writer, speaking of Lord Adare's little book
(privately printed) on his experiences with D. D.
Home, seems to be impressed by the social status of
the various witnesses. Clumsy humour and snob-
bishness are the characteristics of the article:

A volume now lying before us may serve to show how
this folly has spread throughout society. It was lent to us
by a disinguished Spiritualist, under the solemn promise
that we should not divulge a single name of those concerned.
It consists of about 150 pages of reports of stances, and
was privately printed by a noble Earl, who has lately passed
beyond the House of Lords ; beyond also, we trust, the
spirit-peopled chairs and tables which in his lifetime he
loved, not wisely, but too well. In this book things more
marvellous than any we have set down are circumstantially
related, in a natural way, just as though they were ordinary,
everyday matters of fact. We shall not fatigue the reader
by quoting any of the accounts given, and no doubt he will
take our word when we say that they range through every
species of " manifestation," from prophesy ings downwards.

What we more particularly wish to observe is, that the
attestation of fifty respectable witnesses is placed before
the title-page. Among them are a Dowager Duchess
and other ladies of rank, a Captain in the Guards, a noble-

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

man, a Baronet, a Member of Parliament, several officers
of our scientific and other corps, a barrister, a merchant,
and a doctor. Upper and upper middle-class society is
represented in all its grades, and by persons who, to judge
by the position they hold and the callings they follow,
ought to be possessed of intelligence and ability.

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the eminent naturalist,
in the course of a letter to The Times (January 4, 1 873),
describing his visit to a public medium, said:

I consider it no exaggeration to say that the main
facts are now as well established and as easily verifiable
as any of the more exceptional phenomena of Nature which
are not yet reduced to law. They have a most important
bearing on the interpretation of history, which is full of
narratives of similar facts, and on the nature of life and
intellect, on which physical science throws a very feeble
and uncertain light ; and it is my firm and deliberate belief
that every branch of philosophy must suffer till they are
honestly and seriously investigated, and dealt with as con-
stituting an essential portion of the phenomena of human
nature.

One becomes bemused by ectoplasm and labora-
tory experiments which lead the thoughts away from
the essential. Wallace was one of the few whose great,
sweeping, unprejudiced mind saw and accepted the
truth in its wonderful completeness from the humble
physical proofs of outside power to the highest mental
teaching which that power could convey, teaching
that far surpasses in beauty and in credibility any
which the modern mind has known.

The public acceptance and sustained support of
this great scientific man, one of the first brains of his

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

age, were the more important since he had the wit to
understand the complete religious revolution which
lay at the back of these phenomena. It has been a
curious fact that with some exceptions in these days, as
of old, the wisdom has been given to the humble and
withheld from the learned. Heart and intuition have
won to the goal where brain has missed it. One
would think that the proposition was a simple one. It
may be expressed in a series of questions after the
Socratic form: " Have we established connexion with
the intelligence of those who have died ? " The
Spiritualist says: " Yes." " Have they given us in-
formation of the new life in which they find them-
selves, and of how it has been affected by their earth
life ? " Again " Yes." " Have they found it corre-
spond to the account given by any religion upon
earth ? " " No." Then if this be so, is it not clear
that the new information is of vital religious import ?
The humble Spiritualist sees this and adapts his
worship to the facts.

Sir William (then Professor) Barrett brought the
subject of Spiritualism before the British Association
for the Advancement of Science in 1876. His paper
was entitled " On Some Phenomena associated with
Abnormal Conditions of Mind." He had difficulty in
obtaining a hearing. The Biological Committee
refused to accept the paper and passed it on to the
Anthropological Sub-section, who only accepted it
on the casting vote of the chairman, Dr. Alfred Russel
Wallace. Colonel Lane Fox helped to overcome the
opposition by asking why, as they had discussed
179

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

ancient witchcraft the previous year, they should not
examine modern witchcraft that year. The first part
of Professor Barrett's paper dealt with mesmerism,
but in the second part he related his experiences of
Spiritualistic phenomena, and urged that further
scientific examination should be given to the subject.
He gave the convincing details of a remarkable
experience he had had of raps occurring with a
child*

In the ensuing discussion Sir William Crookes
spoke of the levitations he had witnessed with D. D.
Home, and said of levitation: "The evidence in
favour of it is stronger than the evidence in favour of
almost any natural phenomenon the British Associa-
tion could investigate." He also made the following
remarks concerning his own method of psychic
research :

I was asked to investigate when Dr. Slade first came
over, and I mentioned my conditions. I have never
investigated except under these conditions. It must
be at my own house, and my own selection of friends and
spectators, under my own conditions, and I may do what-
ever I like as regards apparatus. I have always tried,
where it has been possible, to make the physical apparatus
test the things themselves, and have not trusted more than
is possible to my own senses. But when it is necessary to
trust to my senses, I must entirely dissent from Mr. Barrett,
when he says a trained physical inquirer is no match for
a professional conjurer. I maintain a physical inquirer
is more than a match.

An important contribution to the discussion was

* The Spiritualist, Sept. 22, 1876 (Vol. IX, pp. 87-88).
180

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

made by Lord Rayleigh, the distinguished mathe-
matician, who said :

I think we are much indebted to Professor Barrett for
his courage, for it requires some courage to come forward
in this matter, and to give us the benefit of his careful
experiments. My own interest in the subject dates back
two years. I was first attracted to it by reading Mr.
Crookes's investigations. Although my opportunities have
not been so good as those enjoyed by Professor Barrett,
I have seen enough to convince me that those are wrong
who wish to prevent investigation by casting ridicule on
those who may feel inclined to engage in it.

The next speaker, Mr. Groom Napier, was greeted
with laughter when he described verified psycho-
metric descriptions of people from their handwriting
enclosed in sealed envelopes, and when he went on to
describe spirit lights that he had seen, the uproar
forced him to resume his seat. Professor Barrett, in
replying to his critics, said :

It certainly shows the immense advance that this
subject has made within the last few years, that a paper on
the once laughed-at phenomena of so-called Spiritualism
should have been admitted into the British Association,
and should have been permitted to receive the full discus-
sion it has had to-day.

The London Spectator, in an article entitled " The
British Association on Professor Barrett's Paper,"
opened with the following broad-minded view :

Now that we have before us a full report of Professor
Barrett's paper, and of the discussion upon it, we may be
permitted to express our hope that the British Association

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

will really take some action on the subject of the paper,
in spite of the protests of the party which we may call the
party of superstitious incredulity. We say superstitious
incredulity because it is really a pure superstition, and noth-
ing else, to assume that we are so fully acquainted with the
laws of Nature, that even carefully-examined facts, attested
by an experienced observer, ought to be cast aside as
utterly unworthy of credit, only because they do not at first
sight seem to be in keeping with what is most clearly known
already.

Sir William Barrett's views steadily progressed until
he accepted the Spiritualistic position in unequivocal
terms before his lamented death in 1925. He lived
to see the whole world ameliorate its antagonism to
such subjects, though little difference perhaps could
be observed in the British Association which remained
as obscurantist as ever. Such a tendency, however,
may not have been an unmixed evil, for, as Sir Oliver
Lodge has remarked, if the great pressing material
problems had been complicated by psychic issues, it is
possible that they would not have been solved. It may
be worth remarking that Sir William Barrett in con-
versation with the author recalled that of the four
men who supported him upon that historical and diffi-
cult occasion, every one lived to receive the Order of
Merit the greatest honour which their country could
bestow. The four were Lord Rayleigh, Crookes,
Wallace and Huggins.

It was not to be expected that the rapid growth

of Spiritualism would be without its less desirable

features. These were of at least two kinds. First the

cry of fraudulent mediumship was frequently heard.

182

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

In the light of our later, fuller knowledge we know
that much that bears the appearance of fraud is
not necessarily fraud at all. At the same time, the
unbounded credulity of a section of Spiritualists un-
doubtedly provided an easy field for charlatans. In
the course of a paper read before the Cambridge
University Society for Psychological Investigation in
1879, the President of the Society, Mr. J. A. Camp-
bell, said : *

Since the advent of Mr. Home, the number of media
has increased yearly, and so has the folly and the imposture.
Every spook has become, in the eyes of fools, a divine angel ;
and not even every spook, but every rogue, dressed up in
a sheet, who has chosen or shall choose to call himself a
materialized " spirit." A so-called religion has been
founded in which the honour of the most sacred names has
been transferred to the ghosts of pickpockets. Of the
characters of which divinities, and of the doctrines taught
by them, I shall not insult you by speaking; so it ever is when
folly and ignorance get into their hands the weapon of
an eternal fact, abuse, distortion, crime itself ; such were
ever the results of children playing with edged tools,
but who but an ignoramus would cry, naughty knife ?
Gradually the movement is clearing itself of such excre-
tions, gradually is it becoming more sober and pure, and
strong, and as sensible men and educated men study and
pray and work, striving to make good use of their know-
ledge, will it become more so.

The second feature was the apparent increase of
what may be termed anti-Christian, though not anti-
religious, Spiritualism. This led to William Howitt

* The Spiritualist, April n, 1879, p. 170.
I8 3

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

and other stalwart supporters ceasing their connexion
with the movement. Powerful articles against this
tendency were contributed to the Spiritual Magazine
by Howitt and others.

A suggestion of the need for caution and balance
is afforded in the remarks of Mr. William Stainton
Moses, who said in a paper read before the British
National Association of Spiritualists on January 26,
1880:*

We are emphatically in need of discipline and educa-
tion. We have hardly yet settled down after our rapid
growth. The child, born just thirty years ago, has increased
in stature (if not in wisdom) at a very rapid rate. It has
grown so fast that its education has been a little neglected.
In the expressive phraseology of its native country, it has
been " .dragged up " rather promiscuously ; and its phe-
nomenal growth has absorbed all other considerations.
The time has now come when those who have regarded it
as an ugly monster which was born by one of Nature's
freaks only to die an early death, begin to recognize their
mistake. The ugly brat means to live ; and beneath its
ugliness the least sympathetic gaze detects a coherent
purpose in its existence. It is the presentation of a prin-
ciple inherent in man's nature, a principle which his
wisdom has improved away until it is wellnigh eliminated
altogether, but which crops out again and again in spite of
him the principle of Spirit as opposed to Matter, of Soul
acting and existing independently of the body which en-
shrines it. Long years of denial of aught but the proper-
ties of matter have landed the chief lights of modern
science in pure Materialism. To them, therefore, this
Spiritualism is a portent and a problem. It is a return to
superstition ; a survival of savagery ; a blot on nineteenth

* The Psychological Review, Vol. II, p. 546.

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

century intelligence. Laughed at, it laughs back ; scorned,
it gives back scorn for scorn.

In 1 88 1, Light, a high-class weekly Spiritualist
newspaper, was begun, and 1882 saw the formation
of the Society for Psychical Research.

Speaking generally, it may be said that the atti-
tude of organized science during these thirty years was
as unreasonable and unscientific as that of Galileo's
cardinals, and that if there had been a Scientific In-
quisition, it would have brought its terrors to bear
upon the new knowledge. No serious attempt of any
sort, up to the formation of the S.P.R. was made to
understand or explain a matter which was engaging
the attention of millions of minds. Faraday in 1853
put forward the theory that table-moving was caused
by muscular pressure, which may be true enough in
some cases, but bears no relation to the levitation
of tables, and in any case applies only to the one
limited class of psychic phenomena. The usual
" scientific " objection was that nothing occurred at
all, which neglected the testimony of thousands of
credible witnesses. Others argued that what did
happen was capable of being exposed by a conjurer,
and any clumsy imitation such as Maskelyne's parody
of the Davenports was eagerly hailed as an exposure,
with no reference to the fact that the whole mental
side of the question with its overwhelming evidence
was untouched thereby.

The " religious " people, furious at being shaken
out of their time-honoured ruts, were ready, like
savages, to ascribe any new thing to the devil. Roman
'85

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Catholics and the Evangelical sects, alike, found
themselves for once united in their opposition. That
low spirits may be reached, and low, lying messages
received, is beyond all doubt, since every class of spirit
exists around us, and like attracts like; but the' lofty,
sustaining and philosophic teaching which comes to
every serious and humble-minded inquirer shows that
it is Angelism and not Diabolism which is within our
reach. Dr. Carpenter put forward some complex
theory, but seems to have been in a minority of one
in its acceptance or even in its comprehension.
The doctors had an explanation founded upon the
cracking of joints, which is ludicrous to anyone who
has had personal experience of those percussive sounds
which vary in range from the tick of a watch to the
blow of a sledge-hammer.

Further explanations, either then or later, included
the Theosophic doctrine, which admitted the facts but
depreciated the spirits, describing them as astral shells
with a sort of dreamy half-consciousness, or possibly
an attenuated conscience which made them sub-human
in their intelligence or morality. Certainly the
quality of spirit communion does vary greatly, but
the highest is so high that we can hardly imagine that
we are in touch with only a fraction of the speaker.
As it is asserted, however, that even in this world our
subliminal self is far superior to our normal workaday
individuality, it would seem only fair that the spirit
world should confront us with something less than
its full powers.

Another theory postulates the Anima Mundl^ a
1 86

CONTINUED PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

huge reservoir or central bank of intelligence, with a
clearing-house in which all inquiries are honoured.
The sharp detail which we receive from the Other Side
is. incompatible with any vague grandiose idea of the
sort. Finally, there is the one really formidable
alternative, that man has an etheric body with many
unknown gifts, among which a power of external
manifestation in curious forms may be included. It
is to this theory of Cryptesthesia that Richet and
others have clung, and up to a point there is an argu-
ment in its favour. The author has satisfied himself
that there is a preliminary and elementary stage in all
psychic work which depends upon the innate and
possibly unconscious power of the medium. The
reading of concealed script, the production of raps
upon demand, the description of scenes at a dis-
tance, the remarkable effects of psychometry, the first
vibrations of the Direct Voice each and all of these
on different occasions have seemed to emanate from
the medium's own power. Then in most cases there
would appear an outside intelligence which was able
to appropriate that force and use it for its own ends.
An illustration might be given in the experiments of
Bisson and Schrenck Notzing with Eva, where the
ectoplasmic forms were at first undoubtedly reflec-
tions of newspaper illustrations, somewhat muddled
by their passage through the medium's mind. Yet
there came a later and deeper stage where an ecto-
plasmic form was evolved which was capable of move-
ment and even of speech. Richet's great brain and
close power of observation have been largely centred
187

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

upon the physical phenomena, and he does not seem
to have been brought much in contact with those
personal mental and spiritual experiences which would
probably have modified his views. It is fair to add,
however, that those views have continually moved in
the direction of the Spiritualistic explanation.

There only remains the hypothesis of complex
personality, which may well influence certain cases,
though it seems to the author that such cases might
be explained equally well by obsession. These in-
stances, however, can only touch the fringe of the
subject, and ignore the whole phenomenal aspect, so
that the matter need not be taken very seriously. It
cannot be too often repeated, however, that the in-
quirer should exhaust every possible normal explana-
tion to his own complete satisfaction before he adopts
the Spiritualistic view. If he has done this his plat-
form is stable if he has not done it he can never be
conscious of its solidity. The author can say truly,
that year after year he clung on to every line of defence
until he was finally compelled, if he were to preserve
any claim to mental honesty, to abandon the material-
istic position.

CHAPTER IX

THE CAREER OF D.D, HOME

DANIEL DUNGLAS HOME was born in
1833 at Currie, a village near Edinburgh.
There was a mystery about his parentage,
and it has been both asserted and denied that he was
related in some fashion to the family of the Earl of
Home. Certainly he was a man who inherited
elegance of figure, delicacy of feature, sensitiveness of
disposition and luxury in taste, from whatever source
he sprang. But for his psychic powers, and for the
earnestness which they introduced into his complex
character, he might have been taken as the very type
of the aristocratic younger son who inherits the
tendencies, but not the wealth, of his forbears.

Home went from Scotland to New England, at the
age of nine years, with his aunt who had adopted him,
a mystery still surrounding his existence. When he
was thirteen he began to show signs of the psychic
faculties he had inherited, for his mother, who was
descended from an old Highland family, had the
characteristic second-sight of her race. His mystical
trend had shown itself in a conversation with his boy
friend, Edwin, about a short story where, as the result
of a compact, a lover, after his death, manifested his
presence to his lady-love. The two boys pledged

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

themselves that whoever died first would come and
show himself to the other. Home removed to another
district some hundreds of miles distant, and about
a month later, just after going to bed one night,
he saw a vision of Edwin and announced to his aunt
his death, news of which was received a day or two
after. A second vision in 1850 concerned the death
of his mother, who with her husband had gone to live
in America. The boy was ill in bed at the time, and
his mother away on a visit to friends at a distance.
One evening he called loudly for help, and when his
aunt came she found him in great distress. He said
that his mother had died that day at twelve o'clock;
that she had appeared to him and told him so. The
vision proved to be only too true. Soon loud raps
began to disturb the quiet household, and furniture
to be moved by invisible agency. His aunt, a woman
of a narrow religious type, declared the boy had
brought the Devil into her house, and turned him out
of doors.

He took refuge with friends, and in the next few
years moved among them from town to town. His
mediumship had become strongly developed, and at
the houses where he stopped he gave frequent stances,
sometimes as many as six or seven a day, for the
limitations of power and the reactions between physical
and psychic were little understood at that time. These
proved a great drain on his strength, and he was fre-
quently laid up with illness. People flocked from all
directions to witness the marvels which occurred in
Home's presence. Among those who investigated
190

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

with him at this time was the American poet Bryant,
who was accompanied by Professor Wells, of Harvard
University. In New York he met many distinguished
Americans, and three Professor Hare, Professor
Mapes, and Judge Edmonds, of the New York
Supreme Court had sittings with him. All three
became, as already stated, convinced Spiritualists.

In these early years the charm of Home's person-
ality, and the deep impression created by his powers,
led to his receiving many offers. Professor George
Bush invited him to stay with him and study for the
Swedenborgian ministry; and Mr. and Mrs. Elmer, a
rich and childless couple, who had grown to cherish
a great affection for him, offered to adopt him and
make him their heir on condition of his changing his
name to Elmer.

His remarkable healing powers had excited won-
der and, yielding to the persuasion of friends, he began
to study for the medical profession. But his general
delicate health, coupled with actual lung trouble,
forced him to abandon this project and, acting
under medical advice, he left New York for
England.

He arrived in Liverpool on April 9, 1855, anc ^ has
been described as a tall, slim youth with a marked
elegance of bearing and a fastidious neatness of dress,
but with a worn, hectic look upon his very expressive
face which told of the ravages of disease. He was
blue-eyed and auburn-haired, of a type which is pecu-
liarly liable to the attack of tubercle, and the extreme
emaciation of his frame showed how little power re-
191

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

mained with him by which he might resist it. An
acute physician watching him closely would probably
have gauged his life by months rather than years in
our humid climate, and of all the marvels which Home
wrought, the prolongation of his own life was perhaps
not the least. His character had already taken on
those emotional and religious traits which distin-
guished it, and he has recorded how, before landing,
he rushed down to his cabin and fell upon his knees
in prayer. When one considers the astonishing career
which lay before him, and the large part which he
played in establishing those physical foundations
which differentiate this religious development from
any other, it may well be claimed that this visitor was
among the most notable missionaries who has ever
visited our shores.

His position at that moment was a very singular
one. He had hardly a relation in the world. His
left lung was partly gone. His income was modest,
though sufficient. He had no trade or profession, his
education having been interrupted by his illness. In
character he was shy, gentle, sentimental, artistic,
affectionate, and deeply religious. He had a strong
tendency both to Art and the Drama, so that his
powers of sculpture were considerable, and as a reciter
he proved in later life that he had few living equals.
But on the top of all this, and of an unflinching honesty
which was so uncompromising that he often offended
his own allies, there was one gift so remarkable that it
threw everything else into insignificance. This lay in
those powers, quite independent of his own volition,

D. D. HOME

i the possession of the London Spiritualist Alliance

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

coming and going with disconcerting suddenness, but
proving to all who would examine the proof, that
there was something in this man's atmosphere which
enabled forces outside himself and outside our ordinary
apprehension to manifest themselves upon this plane of
matter. In other words, he was a medium the
greatest in a physical sense that the modern world has
ever seen.

A lesser man might have used his extraordinary
powers to found some special sect of which he would
have been the undisputed high priest, or to surround
himself with a glamour of power and mystery. Cer-
tainly most people in his position would have been
tempted to use it for the making of money. As to
this latter point, let it be said at once that never in the
course of the thirty years of his strange ministry did
he touch one shilling as payment for his gifts. It is
on sure record that as much as two thousand pounds
was offered to him by the Union Club in Paris in the
year 1 857 for a single seance, and that he, a poor man
and an invalid, utterly refused it. " I have been sent
on a mission," he said. " That mission is to demon-
strate immortality. I have never taken money for it
and I never will." There were certain presents from
Royalty which cannot be refused without boorishness:
rings, scarf-pins, and the like tokens of friendship
rather than recompense; for before his premature
death there were few monarchs in Europe with whom
this shy youth from the Liverpool landing-stage was
not upon terms of affectionate intimacy. Napoleon
the Third provided for his only sister. The Emperor

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

of Russia sponsored his marriage. What novelist
would dare to invent such a career ?

But there are more subtle temptations than those
of wealth. Home's uncompromising honesty was the
best safeguard against those. Never for a moment did
he lose his humility and his sense of proportion. " I
have these powers," he would say ; "I shall be happy,
up to the limit of my strength, to demonstrate them
to you, if you approach me as one gentleman should
approach another. I shall be glad if you can throw
any further light upon them. I will lend myself to
any reasonable experiment. I have no control over
them. They use me, but I do not use them. They
desert me for months and then come back in re-
doubled force. I am a passive instrument no more."
Such was his unvarying attitude. He was always the
easy, amiable man of the world, with nothing either
of the mantle of the prophet or of the skull-cap of the
magician. Like most truly great men, there was no
touch of pose in his nature. An index of his fine
feeling is that when confirmation was needed for his
results he would never quote any names unless he was
perfectly certain that the owners would not suffer in
any way through being associated with an unpopular
cult. Sometimes even after they had freely given
leave he still withheld the names, lest he should un-
wittingly injure a friend. When he published his
first series of " Incidents in my Life," the Saturday
Review waxed very sarcastic over the anonymous

" evidence of Countess , Count B , Count

de K , Princess de B and Mrs. S ," who

194

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

were quoted as having witnessed manifestations. In
his second volume, Home, having assured himself of
the concurrence of his friends, filled the blanks with
the names of the Countess Orsini, Count de Beaumont,
Count de Kornar, Princess de Beauveau, and the well-
known American hostess, Mrs. Henry Senior. His
Royal friends he never quoted at all, and yet it is
notorious that the Emperor Napoleon, the Empress
Eugenie, the Tsar Alexander, the Emperor William
the First of Germany, and the Kings of Bavaria
and Wurtemberg were all equally convinced by
his extraordinary powers. Never once was Home
convicted of any deception, either in word or in
deed.

On first landing in England he took up his quarters
at Cox's Hotel in Jermyn Street, and it is probable
that he chose that hostelry because he had learned that
through Mrs. Hayden's ministry the proprietor was
already sympathetic to the cause. However that may
be, Mr. Cox quickly discovered that his young guest
was a most remarkable medium, and at his invitation
some of the leading minds of the day were asked to
consider those phenomena which Home could lay
before them. Among others, Lord Brougham came
to a seance and brought with him his scientific friend,
Sir David Brewster. In full daylight they investi-
gated the phenomena, and in his amazement at what
happened Brewster is reported to have said : " This
upsets the philosophy of fifty years." If he had said
" fifteen hundred " he would have been within the
mark. He described what took place in a letter written
195

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

to his sister at the time, but published long after.*
Those present were Lord Brougham, Sir David
Brewster, Mr. Cox and the medium.

" We four," said Brewster, " sat down at a moderately-
sized table, the structure of which we were invited to
examine. In a short time the table struggled, and a
tremulous motion ran up all our arms; at our bidding these
motions ceased and returned. The most unaccountable
rappings were produced in various parts of the table,
and the table actually rose from the ground when no hand
was upon it. A larger table was produced, and exhibited
similar movements. . . .

" A small hand-bell was laid down with its mouth
upon the carpet, and after lying for some time, it actually
rang when nothing could have touched it." He adds that
the bell came over to him and placed itself in his hand, and
it did the same to Lord Brougham ; and concludes :
" These were the principal experiments. We could give
no explanation of them, and could not conjecture how they
could be produced by any kind of mechanism."

The Earl of Dunraven states that he was induced
to investigate the phenomena by what Brewster had
told him. He describes meeting the latter, who said
that the manifestations were quite inexplicable by
fraud, or by any physical laws with which we were
acquainted. Home sent an account of this sitting in
a letter to a friend in America, where it was published
with comments. When these were reproduced in the
English Press, Brewster became greatly alarmed. It
was one thing to hold certain views privately, it was
quite another to face the inevitable loss of prestige

* " Home Life of Sir David Brewster," by Mrs. Gordon (his daughter),
1869.

I 9 6

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

that would occur in the scientific circles in which he
moved. Sir David was not the stuff of which martyrs
or pioneers are made. He wrote to the Morning
Advertiser, stating that though he had seen several
mechanical effects which he could not explain, yet he
was satisfied that they could all be produced by human
hands and feet. At the time it had, of course, never
occurred to him that his letter to his sister, just quoted,
would ever see the light.

When the whole correspondence came to be
published, the Spectator remarked of Sir David
Brewster :

It seems established by the clearest evidence that he
felt and expressed, at and immediately after his stances
with Mr. Home, a wonder and almost awe, which he
afterwards wished to explain away. The hero of science
does not acquit himself as one could wish or expect.

We have dwelt a little on this Brewster incident be-
cause it was typical of the scientific attitude of the day,
and because its effect was to excite a wider public
interest in -Home and his phenomena, and to bring
hundreds of fresh investigators. One may say that
scientific men may be divided into three classes: those
who have not examined the matter at all (which does
not in the least prevent them from giving very violent
opinions); those who know that it is true but are
afraid to say so; and finally the gallant minority of the
Lodges, the Crookes, the Barretts and the Lombrosos,
who know it is true and who dare all in saying so.

From Jermyn Street, Home went to stay with the
Rymer family in Baling, where many stances were

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

held. Here he was visited by Lord Lytton, the
famous novelist, who, although he received striking
evidence, never publicly avowed his belief in the
medium's powers, though his private letters, and
indeed his published novels, are evidence of his true
feeling. This was the case with scores of well-known
men and women. Among his early sitters were
Robert Owen the Socialist, T. A. Trollope the
author, and Dr. J. Garth Wilkinson the alienist.

In these days, when the facts of psychic pheno-
mena are familiar to all save those who are wilfully
ignorant, we can hardly realize the moral courage
which was needed by Home in putting forward his
powers and upholding them in public. To the aver-
age educated Briton in the material Victorian era a
man who claimed to be able to produce results which
upset Newton's law of gravity, and which showed in-
visible mind acting upon visible matter, was prima
Jade a scoundrel and an impostor. The view of
Spiritualism pronounced by Vice-Chancellor Giffard
at the conclusion of the Home-Lyon trial was that of
the class to which he belonged. He knew nothing
of the matter, but took it for granted that anything
with such claims must be false. No doubt similar
things were reported in far-off lands and ancient
books, but that they could occur in prosaic, steady old
England, the England of bank-rates and free imports,
was too absurd for serious thought. It has been re-
corded that at this trial Lord Giffard turned to Home's
counsel and said: " Do I understand. you- -to -state that
your client claims that he has been levitated into the

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

air ? " Counsel assented, on which the judge turned
to the jury and made such a movement as the high
priest may have made in ancient days when he rent
his garments as a protest against blasphemy. In 1868
there were few of the jury who were sufficiently edu-
cated to check the judge's remarks, and it is just in
that particular that we have made some progress in
the fifty years between. Slow work but Christianity
took more than three hundred years to come into its
own.

Take this question of levitation as a test of Home's
powers. It is claimed that more than a hundred times
in good light before reputable witnesses he floated in
the air. Consider the evidence. In 1857, in a
chateau near Bordeaux, he was lifted to the ceiling of
a lofty room in the presence of Madame Ducos, widow
of the Minister of Marine, and of the Count and Coun-
tess de Beaumont. In 1860 Robert Bell wrote an
article, " Stranger than Fiction," in the CornhilL
" He rose from his chair," says Bell, " four or five feet
from the ground. . . . We saw his figure pass from
one side of the window to the other, feet foremost,
lying horizontally in the air." Dr. Gully, of Malvern,
a well-known medical man, and Robert Chambers,
the author and publisher, were the other witnesses. Is
it to be supposed that these men were lying confeder-
ates, or that they could not tell if a man were floating
in the air or pretending to do so ? In the same year
Home was raised at Mrs. Milner Gibson's house in the
presence of Lord and Lady Clarence Paget, the former
passing his hands underneath him to assure himself of

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

the fact. A few months later Mr. Wason, a Liverpool
solicitor, with seven others, saw the same phenomenon.
" Mr. Home," he says, " crossed the table over the
heads of the persons sitting around it." He added:
" I reached his hand seven feet from the floor, and
moved along five or six paces as he floated above me
in the air." In 1861 Mrs. Parkes, of Cornwall Ter-
race, Regent's Park, tells how she was present with
Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Hall when Home in her own
drawing-room was raised till his hand was on the top
of the door, and then floated horizontally forward. In
1866 Mr. and Mrs. Hall, Lady Dunsany, and Mrs.
Senior, in Mr. Hall's house saw Home, his face trans-
figured and shining, twice rise to the ceiling, leaving
a cross marked in pencil upon the second occasion, so
as to assure the witnesses that they were not the victims
of imagination.

In 1868 Lord Adare, Lord Lindsay, Captain
Wynne, and Mr. Smith Barry saw Home levitate upon
many occasions. A very minute account has been
left by the first three witnesses of the occurrence of
December 16* of this year, when at Ashley House
Home, in a state of trance, floated out of the bedroom
and into the sitting-room window, passing seventy feet
above the street. After his arrival in the sitting-room
he went back into the bedroom with Lord Adare, and
upon the latter remarking that he could not under-
stand how Home could have fitted through the win-
dow which was only partially raised, " he told me to
stand a little distance off. He then went through the

* The almanac shows it to be Sunday the isth.
200

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

open space head first quite rapidly, his body being
nearly horizontal and apparently rigid. He came in
again feet foremost." Such was the account given by
Lords Adare and Lindsay. Upon its publication Dr.
Carpenter, who earned an unenviable reputation by a
perverse opposition to every fact which bore upon this
question, wrote exultantly to point out that there had
been a third witness who had not been heard from,
assuming without the least justification that Captain
Wynne's evidence would be contradictory. He went
the length of saying " a single honest sceptic declares
that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair all the time "
a statement which can only be described as false.
Captain Wynne at once wrote corroborating the others
and adding: " If you are not to believe the corrobora-
tive evidence of three unimpeached witnesses, there
would be an end to all justice and courts of law."

To show how hard put to it the critics have been
to find some loophole of escape from the obvious, they
have made much of the fact that Lord Lindsay, writ-
ing some time after the event, declared that it was seen
by moonlight; whereas the calendar shows that the
moon was not at that time visible. Mr. Andrew Lang
remarks: " Even in fog, however, people in a room
can see a man coming in by the window, and go out
again, head first, with body rigid." * It would seem
to most of us that if we saw so marvellous a sight we
would have little time to spare to determine whether
we viewed it by the light of the moon or by that of
the street lamps. It must be admitted, however, that

* "Historical Mysteries," p. 236.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Lord Lindsay's account is clumsily worded so clum-
sily that there is some excuse for Mr. Joseph McCabe's
reading of it that the spectators looked not at the -object
itself and its shadow on the window-sill, but that they
stood with their backs to it and viewed the shadow on
the wall. When one considers, however, the stand-
ing of the three eye-witnesses who have testified to
this, one may well ask whether in ancient or modern
times any preternatural event has been more clearly
proved.

So many are the other instances of Home's levita-
tions that a long article might easily be written upon
this single phase of his mediumship. Professor
Crookes was again and again a witness to the pheno-
menon, and refers to fifty instances which had come
within his knowledge. But is there any fair-minded
person who has read the incident here recorded who
will not say, with Professor Challis: " Either the facts
must be admitted to be such as are reported, or the
possibility of certifying facts by human testimony must
be given up."

" Are we, then, back in the age of miracles ? "
cries the reader. There is no miracle. Nothing on
this plane is supernatural. What we see now, and
what we have read of in ages past, is but the operation
of law which has not yet been studied and defined.
Already we realize something of its possibilities and
of its limitations, which are as exact in their way as
those of any purely physical power. We must hold
the balance between those who would believe nothing
and those who would believe too much. Gradually

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

the mists will clear and we will chart the shadowy
coast. When the needle first sprang up at the magnet
it was not an infraction of the laws of gravity. It was
that there had been the local intervention of another
stronger force. Such is the case also when psychic
powers act upon the plane of matter. Had Home's
faith in this power faltered, or had his circle been un-
duly disturbed, he would have fallen. When Peter
lost faith he sank into the waves. Across the cen-
turies the same cause still produced the same effect.
Spiritual power is ever with us if we do not avert our
faces, and nothing has been vouchsafed to Judaea
which is withheld from England.

It is in this respect, as a confirmation of the power
of the unseen, and as a final answer to materialism as
we now understand it, that Home's public career is
of such supreme importance. He was an affirmative
witness of the truth of those so-called " miracles "
which have been the stumbling-block for so many
earnest minds, and are now destined to be the strong
solid proof of the accuracy of the original narrative.
Millions of doubting souls in the agony of spiritual
conflict had cried out for definite proof that all was
not empty space around us, that there were powers
beyond our grasp, that the ego was not a mere secre-
tion of nervous tissue, and that the dead did really
carry on their personal unbroken existence. All this
was proved by this greatest of modern missionaries to
anyone who could observe or reason. It is easy to
poke superficial fun at rising tables and quivering
walls, but they were the nearest and most natural
203

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

objects which could record in material terms that
power which was beyond our human ken. A mind
which would be unmoved by an inspired sentence was
struck into humility and into new paths of research in
the presence of even the most homely of these in-
explicable phenomena. It is easy to call them puerile,
but they effected the purpose for which they were sent
by shaking to its foundations the complaisance of those
material men of science who were brought into actual
contact with them. They are to be regarded not as
ends in themselves, but as the elementary means by
which the mind should be diverted into new channels
of thought. And those channels of thought led
straight to the recognition of the survival of the spirit.
" You have conveyed incalculable joy and comfort to
the hearts of many people," said Bishop Clark, of
Rhode Island. " You have made dwelling-places
light that were dark before." " Mademoiselle," said
Home to the lady who was to be his wife, " I have a
mission entrusted to me. It is a great and a holy
one." The famous Dr. Elliotson, immortalized by
Thackeray under the name of Dr. Goodenough, was
one of the leaders of British materialism. He met
Home, saw his powers, and was able soon to say that
he had lived all his life in darkness and had thought
there was nothing in existence but the material, but
he now had a firm hope which he trusted he would
hold while on earth.

Innumerable instances could be quoted of the
spiritual value of Home's work, but it has never been
better summed up than in a paragraph from Mrs.
204

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

Webster, of Florence, who saw much of his ministry.
" He is the most marvellous missionary of modern
times in the greatest of all causes, and the good that he
has done cannot be reckoned. When Mr. Home
passes he bestows around him the greatest of all
blessings, the certainty of a future life."

Now that the details of his career can be read, it is
to the whole wide world that he brings this most vital
of all messages. His attitude as to his own mission
was expressed in a lecture given in London in Willis's
Rooms on February 15, 1866. He said: " I believe
in my heart that this power is being spread more and
more every day to draw us nearer to God. You ask
if it makes us purer ? My only answer is that we are
but mortals, and as such liable to err; but it does teach
that the pure in heart shall see God. It teaches us
that He is love, and that there is no death. To the
aged it comes as a solace, when the storms of life are
nearly over and rest cometh. To the young it speaks
of the duty we owe to each other, and that as we sow
so shall we reap. To all it teaches resignation. It
comes to roll away the clouds of error, and bring the
bright morning of a never-ending day."

It is curious to see how his message affected those
of his own generation. Reading the account of his
life written by his widow a most convincing docu-
ment, since she of all living mortals must have known
the real man it would appear that his most utterly
whole-hearted support and appreciation came from
those aristocrats of France and Russia with whom he
was brought into contact. The warm glow of per-
205

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

sonal admiration and even reverence in their letters is
such as can hardly be matched in any biography. In
England he had a close circle of ardent supporters, a
few of the upper classes, with the Halls, the Howitts,
Robert Chambers, Mrs. Milner Gibson, Professor
Crookes, and others. But there was a sad lack of
courage among those who admitted the facts in private
and stood aloof in public. Lord Brougham and
Bulwer Lytton were of the type of Nicodemus, the
novelist being the worst offender. " Intelligentzia "
on the whole came badly out of the matter, and many
an honoured name suffers in the story. Faraday and
Tyndall were fantastically unscientific in their methods
of prejudging a question first, and offering to examine
it afterwards on the condition that their prejudgment
was accepted. Sir David Brewster, as already shown,
said some honest things, and then in a panic denied
that he had said them, forgetting that the evidence was
on actual record. Browning wrote a long poem if
such doggerel can be called poetry to describe an
exposure which had never taken place. Carpenter
earned an unenviable notoriety as an unscrupulous
opponent, while proclaiming some strange Spiritual-
istic thesis of his own. The secretaries of the Royal
Society refused to take a cab-drive in order to see
Crookes's demonstration of the physical phenomena,
while they pronounced roundly against them. Lord
Giffard inveighed from the Bench against a subject
the first elements of which he did not understand.

As to the clergy, such an order might not have
existed during the thirty years that this, the most
206

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

marvellous spiritual outpouring of many centuries, was
before the public. One cannot recall the name of one
British clergyman who showed any intelligent in-
terest; and when in 1872 a full account of the St.
Petersburg stances began to appear in The Times, it
was cut short, according to Mr. H. T. Humphreys,
" on account of strong remonstrances to Mr. Delane,
the editor, by certain of the higher clergy of the
Church of England." Such was the contribution
of our official spiritual guides. Dr. Elliotson the
Rationalist, was far more alive than they. The rather
bitter comment of Mrs. Home is: " The verdict of
his own generation was that of the blind and deaf
upon the man who could hear and see."

Home's charity was among his more beautiful
characteristics. Like all true charity it was secret, and
only comes out indirectly and by chance. One of his
numerous traducers declared that he had allowed a
bill for 50 to be sent in to his friend, Mr. Rymer.
In self-defence it came out that it was not a bill but
a cheque most generously sent by Home to help this
friend in a crisis. Considering his constant poverty,
fifty pounds probably represented a good part of his
bank balance. His widow dwells with pardonable
pride upon the many evidences found in his letters
after his death. " Now it is an unknown artist for
whose brush Home's generous efforts had found
employment; now a distressed worker writes of his
sick wife's life saved by comforts that Home provided ;
now a mother thanks him for a start in life for her son.
How much time and thought he devoted to helping
207

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

others when the circumstance of his own life would
have led most men to think only of their own needs
and cares."

" Send me a word from the heart that has known
so often how to cheer a friend ! " cries one of his
prote'ge's.

" Shall I ever prove worthy of all the good you
have done me ? " says another letter.

We find him roaming the battlefields round Paris,
often under fire, with his pockets full of cigars for the
wounded, A German officer writes affectionately to
remind him how he saved him from bleeding to death,
and carried him on his own weak back out of the place
of danger. Truly Mrs. Browning was a better judge
of character than her spouse, and Sir Galahad a better
name than Sludge.

At the same time, it would be absurd to depict
Home as a man of flawless character. He had the
weakness of his temperament, and something feminine
in his disposition which showed itself in many ways.
The author, while in Australia, came across a corre-
spondence dating from 1856 between Home and the
elder son of the Rymer family. They had travelled
together in Italy, and Home had deserted his friend
under circumstances which showed inconstancy and
ingratitude. It is only fair to add that his health was
so broken at the time that he could hardly be called
normal. " He had the defects of an emotional
character," said Lord Dunraven, " with vanity highly
developed, perhaps wisely to enable him to hold his
own against the ridicule that was then poured out on

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

Spiritualism and everything connected with it. He
was liable to fits of great depression and to nervous
crises difficult to understand, but he was withal of a
simple, kindly, humorous, loving disposition that
appealed to me. . . . My friendship remained with-
out change or diminution to the end."

There are few of the varied gifts which we call
" mediumistic " and St. Paul " of the spirit " which
Home did not possess indeed, the characteristic of
his psychic power was its unusual versatility. We
speak usually of a Direct Voice medium, of a trance
speaker, of a clairvoyant or of a physical medium, but
Home was all four. So far as can be traced, he had
little experience of the powers of other mediums, and
was not immune from that psychic jealousy which is
a common trait of these sensitives. Mrs. Jencken,
formerly Miss Kate Fox, was the only other medium
with whom he was upon terms of friendship. He
bitterly resented any form of deception, and carried
this excellent trait rather too far by looking with eyes
of suspicion upon all forms of manifestations which did
not exactly correspond with his own. This opinion,
expressed in an uncompromising manner in his last
book, " Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism," gave
natural offence to other mediums who claimed to be
as honest as himself. A wider acquaintance with
phenomena would have made him more charitable.
Thus he protested strongly against any stance being
held in the dark, but this is certainly a counsel of per-
fection, for experiments upon the ectoplasm which is
the physical basis of all materializations show that it

o 209

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

is usually affected by light unless the light is tinted red.
Home had no large experience of complete material-
izations such as were obtained in those days by Miss
Florence Cook, or Madame d'Esperance, or in our
own time, by Madame Bisson's medium, and therefore
he could dispense with complete darkness in his own
ministry. Thus, his opinion was unjust to others.
Again, Home declared roundly that matter could not
pass through matter, because his own phenomena did
not take that form; and yet the evidence that matter
can in certain cases be passed through matter seems
to be overwhelming. Even birds of rare varieties
have been brought into stance rooms under circum-
stances which seem to preclude fraud, and the experi-
ments of passing wood through wood, as shown before
Zollner and the other Leipzig professors, were quite
final as set forth in the famous physicist's account in
" Transcendental Physics " of his experiences with
Slade. Thus, it may count as a small flaw in Home's
character that he decried and doubted the powers
which he himself did not happen to possess.

Some also might count it as a failing that he carried
his message rather to the leaders of society and of life
than to the vast toiling masses. It is probable that
Home had, in fact, the weakness as well as the graces
of the artistic nature and that he was most at ease and
happiest in an atmosphere of elegance and refinement,
with a personal repulsion from all that was sordid and
ill-favoured. If there were no other reason the pre-
carious state of his health unfitted him for any sterner
mission, and he was driven by repeated haemorrhages

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

to seek the pleasant and refined life of Italy, Switzer-
land and the Riviera. But for the prosecution of his
mission, as apart from personal self-sacrifice, there can
be no doubt that his message carried to the laboratory
of a Crookes or to the Court of a Napoleon was more
useful than if it were laid before the crowd. The
assent of science and of character was needed before
the public could gain assurance that such things were
true. If it was not fully gained the fault lies assuredly
with the hidebound men of science and thinkers of the
day, and by no means with Home, who played his
part of actual demonstration to perfection, leaving it
to other and less gifted men to analyse and to make
public that which he had shown them. He did not
profess to be a man of science, but he was the raw
material of science, willing and anxious that others
should learn from him all that he could convey to the
world, so that science should itself testify to religion
while religion should be buttressed upon science.
When Home's message has been fully learned an un-
believing man will not stand convicted of impiety,
but of ignorance.

There was something pathetic in Home's efforts to
find some creed in which he could satisfy his own
gregarious instinct for he had no claims to be a
strong-minded individualist and at the same time
find a niche into which he could fit his own precious
packet of assured truth. His pilgrimage vindicates
the assertion of some Spiritualists that a man may
belong to any creed and carry with him the spiritual
knowledge, but it also bears out those who reply that

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

perfect harmony with that spiritual knowledge can
only be found, as matters now stand, in a special
Spiritualist community. Alas I that it should be so,
for it is too big a thing to sink into a sect, however
great that sect might become. Home began in his
youth as a Wesleyan, but soon left them for the more
liberal atmosphere of Congregationalism. In Italy
the artistic atmosphere of the Roman Catholic Church,
and possibly its record of so many phenomena akin
to his own, caused him to become a convert with an
intention of joining a monastic Order an intention
which his common sense caused him to abandon. The
change of religion was at a period when his psychic
powers had deserted him for a year, and his confessor
assured him that as they were of evil origin they would
certainly never be heard of again now that he was a
son of the true Church. None the less, on the very
day that the year expired they came back in renewed
strength. From that time Home seems to have been
only nominally a Catholic, if at all, and after his
second marriage both his marriages were to Russian
ladies he was strongly drawn towards the Greek
Church, and it was under their ritual that he was at
last laid to rest at St. Germain in 1886. " To another
discerning of Spirits" (i Cor, xii. 10) is the short
inscription upon that grave, of which the world has
not yet heard the last.

If proof were needed of the blamelessness of
Home's life, it could not be better shown than by the
fact that his numerous enemies, spying ever for some
opening to attack, could get nothing in his whole

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

career upon which to comment save the wholly inno-
cent affair which is known as the Home-Lyon case.
Any impartial judge reading the depositions in this
case they are to be found verbatim in the second
series of " Incidents in My Life " would agree that
it is not blame but commiseration which was owing
to Home. One could desire no higher proof of the
nobility of his character than his dealings with this
unpleasant freakish woman, who first insisted upon
settling a large sum of money upon him, and then,
her whim having changed and her expectations of an
immediate introduction into high society being dis-
appointed, stuck at nothing in order to get it back
again. Had she merely asked for it back there is
little doubt that Home's delicate feelings would have
led him to return it, even though he had been put to
much trouble and expense over the matter, which had
entailed a change of his name to Home-Lyon, to meet
the woman's desire that he should be her adopted son.
Her request, however, was so framed that he could not
honourably agree to it, as it would have implied an
admission that he had done wrong in accepting the
gift. If one consults the original letters which few
of those who comment upon the case seem to have
done one finds that Home, S. C. Hall as his repre-
sentative and Mr. Wilkinson as his solicitor, implored
the woman to moderate the unreasonable benevolence
which was to change so rapidly into even more un-
reasonable malevolence. She was absolutely deter-
mined that Home should have the money and be her
heir. A less mercenary man never lived, and he
213

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

begged her again and again to think of her relatives,
to which she answered that the money was her own
to do what she pleased with, and that no relatives were
dependent upon it. From the time that he accepted
the new situation he acted and wrote as a dutiful son,
and it is not uncharitable to suppose that this entirely
filial attitude may not have been that which this
elderly lady had planned out in her scheming brain.
At any rate, she soon tired of her fad and reclaimed
her money upon the excuse a monstrous one to any-
one who will read the letters and consider the dates
that spirit messages had caused her to take the action
she had done.

The case was tried in the Court of Chancery, and
the judge alluded to Mrs. Lyon's " innumerable mis-
statements on many important particulars misstate-
ments upon oath so perversely untrue that they have
embarrassed the Court to a great degree and quite
discredited the plaintiff's testimony." In spite of this
caustic comment, and in spite also of elementary
justice, the verdict was against Home on the general
ground that British law put the burden of disproof
upon the defendant in such a case, and complete dis-
proof is impossible when assertion is met by counter-
assertion. Lord Giffard might, no doubt, have risen
superior to the mere letter of the law had it not been
that he was deeply prejudiced against all claims to
psychic power, which were from his point of view
manifestly absurd and yet were persisted in by the
defendant under his nose in his own Court of Chan-
cery. Even Home's worst enemies were forced to
214

THE CAREER OF D. D. HOME

admit that the fact that he had retained the money in
England and had not lodged it where it would have
been beyond recovery proved his honest intentions in
this the most unfortunate episode of his life. Of all
the men of honour who called him friend, it is not
recorded that he lost one through the successful
machinations of Mrs. Lyon. Her own motives were
perfectly obvious. As all the documents were in
order, her only possible way of getting the money back
was to charge Home with having extorted it from her
by misrepresentation, and she was cunning enough to
know what chance a medium even an amateur
unpaid medium would have in the ignorant and
material atmosphere of a mid-Victorian court of law.
Alas ! that we can omit the " mid-Victorian " and
the statement still holds good.

The powers of Home have been attested by so
many famous observers, and were shown under such
frank conditions, that no reasonable man can possibly
doubt them. Crookes's evidence alone is conclusive.*
There is also the remarkable book, reprinted at a
recent date, in which Lord Dunraven gives the story
of his youthful connexion with Home. But apart
from these, among those in England who investi-
gated in the first few years and whose public
testimony or letters to Home show they were not
only convinced of the genuineness of the phenomena,
but also of their spiritual origin, may be mentioned
the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Shelley, Lady

* " Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism," and S.P.R. Proceedings,
VL, p. 98.

21 5

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Gomm, Dr. Robert Chambers, Lady Otway, Miss
Catherine Sinclair, Mrs. Milner Gibson, Mr. and
Mrs. William Howitt, Mrs. De Burgh, Dr. Gully
(of Malvern), Sir Charles Nicholson, Lady Dunsany,
Sir Daniel Cooper, Mrs. Adelaide Senior, Mr. and
Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mrs. Makdougall Gregory, Mr.
Pickersgill, R.A., Mr. E. L. Blanchard, and Mr.
Robert Bell.

Others who went so far as to admit that the theory
of imposture was insufficient to account for the pheno-
mena were: Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Thackeray (then editor
of the Cornhill Magazine), Mr. John Bright, Lord
DufFerin, Sir Edwin Arnold, Mr. Heaphy, Mr.
Durham (sculptor), Mr. Nassau Senior, Lord Lynd-
hurst, Mr. J. Hutchinson (ex-Chairman of the Stock
Exchange), and Dr. Lockhart Robertson.

Such were his witnesses and such his works. And
yet, when his most useful and unselfish life had come
to an end, it must be recorded to the eternal disgrace
of our British Press that there was hardly a paper
which did not allude to him as an impostor and a
charlatan. The time is coming, however, when he
will be recognized for what he was, one of the pioneers
in the slow and arduous advance of Humanity into
that jungle of ignorance which has encompassed it
so long.

CHAPTER X

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

IN order to present a consecutive story the career
of D, D. Home has been traced in its entirety.
It is necessary now to return to earlier days in
America and consider the development of the two
Davenports, Home and the Davenports both played
an international part, and their history helps to cover
the movement both in England and in the States.
The Davenports worked upon a far lower level than
Home, making a profession of their remarkable gifts,
and yet by their crude methods they got their results
across to the multitude in a way which a more refined
mediumship could not have done. If one considers
this whole train of events as having been engineered
by a wise but by no means infallible or omnipotent
force upon the Other Side, one observes how each
occasion is met by the appropriate instrument, and
how as one demonstration fails to impress some other
one is substituted.

The Davenports have been fortunate in their
chroniclers. Two writers have published books*

* " A Biography of the Brothers Davenport." By T. L. Nichols, M D.,
London, 1864. " Supramundane Facts in the Life of Rev. J. B. Ferguson,
LL.D." By T. L. Nichols, M.D., London, 1865. " Spiritual Experiences :
Including Seven Months with the Brothers Davenport," By Robert Cooper,
London, 1867.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

describing the events of their life, and the periodical
literature of the time is full of their exploits.

Ira Erastus Davenport and William Henry Daven-
port were born at Buffalo in the State of New York,
the former on September 17, 1839, and the latter on
February i, 1841. Their father, who was descended
from the early English settlers in America, occupied
a position in the police department of Buffalo. Their
mother was born in Kent, England, and went to
America when a child. Some indications of psychic
gifts were observed in the mother's life. In 1846 the
family were disturbed in the middle of the night by
what they described as " raps, thumps, loud noises,
snaps, crackling noises." This was two years before
the outbreak in the Fox family. But it was the Fox
manifestations which, in this case as in so many others,
led them to investigate and discover their medium-
istic powers.

The two Davenport boys and their sister Eliza-
beth, the youngest of the three, experimented by
placing their hands on a table. Loud and violent
noises were heard and messages were spelt out. The
news leaked abroad, and as with the Fox girls, hun-
dreds of curious and incredulous people flocked to the
house. Ira developed automatic writing, and handed
to those present messages written with extraordinary
rapidity and containing information he could not
have known. Levitation quickly followed, and the
boy was floated in the air above the heads of those in
the room at a distance of nine feet from the floor.
Next, the brother and sister were influenced in the

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

same way, and the three children floated high up in
the room. Hundreds of respectable citizens of Buffalo
are reported to have seen these occurrences. Once
when the family was at breakfast the knives, forks,
and dishes danced about and the table was raised in
the air. At a sitting soon after this a lead pencil was
seen to write in broad daylight, with no human con-
tact. Stances were now held regularly, lights began
to appear, and musical instruments floated and played
above the heads of the company. The Direct Voice
and other extraordinary manifestations too numerous
to mention followed. Yielding to requests from the
communicating intelligences, the brothers started
journeying to various places and holding public
stances. Among strangers, tests were insisted upon.
At first the boys were held by persons selected from
those present, but this being found unsatisfactory
because it was thought that those holding them were
confederates, the plan of tying them with ropes was
adopted. To read the list of ingenious tests succes-
sively proposed, and put into operation without inter-
fering with the manifestations, shows how almost
impossible it is to convince resolute sceptics. As soon
as one test succeeded another was proposed, and so
on. The professors of Harvard University in 1857
conducted an examination of the boys and their
phenomena. Their biographer writes : *

The professors exercised their ingenuity in proposing
tests. Would they submit to be handcuffed ? Yes.

* "A Biography of the Brothers Davenport." By T. L. Nichols, M.D.,
pp. 87-88.

219

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Would they allow men to hold them ? Yes. A dozen
propositions were made, accepted, and then rejected by
those who made them. If any test was adopted by the
brothers, that was reason enough for not trying it. They
were supposed to be prepared for that, so some other must
be found.

Finally, the professors bought five hundred feet of
new rope, bored with holes the cabinet set up in one
of their rooms, and trussed the boys in what is
described as a brutal manner. All the knots in the
rope were tied with linen thread, and one of their
number, Professor Pierce, took his place in the
cabinet between the two brothers. At once a phan-
tom hand was shown, instruments were rattled and
were felt by the professor about his head and face.
At every movement he felt for the boys with his
hands, only to find them still securely bound. The
unseen operators at last released the boys from their
bindings, and when the cabinet was opened the ropes
were found twisted round the neck of the professor !
After all this, the Harvard professors made no report.
It is instructive also to read the account of the really
ingenious test-apparatus consisting of what may be
described as wooden sleeves and trousers, securely
fastened, devised by a man named Darling, in Bangor
(U.S.A.). Like other tests, it proved incapable of
preventing instant manifestations. It is to be remem-
bered that many of these tests were applied at a time
when the brothers were mere boys, too young to have
learned any elaborate means of deception.

It is not strange to read that the phenomena

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

raised violent opposition almost everywhere, and the
brothers were frequently denounced as jugglers and
humbugs. It was after ten years of public work in
the largest cities and towns in the United States that
the Davenport Brothers came to England. They had
submitted successfully to every test that human in-
genuity could devise, and no one had been able to say
how their results were obtained. They had won for
themselves a great reputation. Now they had to
begin all over again.

The two brothers, Ira and William, at this time
were aged twenty-five and twenty-three years re-
spectively. The New York World thus describes
them:

They looked remarkably like each other in almost
every particular, both quite handsome with rather long,
curly black hair, broad, but not high foreheads, dark keen
eyes, heavy eyebrows, moustache and " goatee," firm-set
lips, muscular though well-proportioned frame. They
were dressed in black with dress-coats, one wearing a
watchchain.

Dr. Nichols, their biographer, gives this first
impression of them :

The young men, with whom I have had but a brief
personal acquaintance, and whom I never saw until their
arrival in London, appear to me to be in intellect and char-
acter above the average of their young countrymen, they
are not remarkable for cleverness, though of fair abilities,
and Ira has some artistic talent. . . . The young men seem
entirely honest, and singularly disinterested and unmer-
cenary far more anxious to have people satisfied of their
integrity and the reality of their manifestations than to

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

make money. They have an ambition, without doubt,
which is gratified in their having been selected as the
instruments of what they believe will be some great good
to mankind.

They were accompanied to England by the Rev.
Dr. Ferguson, formerly pastor of a large church at
Nashville, Tennessee, at which Abraham Lincoln
attended, Mr. D. Palmer, a well-known operatic
manager, who acted as secretary, and Mr. William M.
Fay, who was also a medium.

Mr. P. B. Randall, in his biography of the Daven-
ports (Boston 1869, published anonymously), points
out that their mission to England was " to meet on its
own low ground and conquer, by appropriate means,
the hard materialism and scepticism of England."
The first step to knowledge, he says, is to be
convinced of ignorance, and adds :

If the manifestations given by the aid of the Brothers
Davenport can prove to the intellectual and scientific
classes that there are forces and intelligent forces, or
powerful intelligences beyond the range of their philo-
sophies, and that what they consider physical impossi-
bilities are readily accomplished by invisible, and to them
unknown, intelligences, a new universe will be open to
human thought and investigation.

There is little doubt that the mediums had this
effect on many minds.

The manifestations of Mrs. Hayden's mediumship
were quiet and unobtrusive, and while those of D. D,
Home were more remarkable, they were confined
entirely to exclusive sets of people to whom no fees

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

were charged. Now these two brothers hired public
halls and challenged the world at large to come and
witness phenomena which passed the bounds of all
ordinary belief. It needed no foresight to predict for
them a strenuous time of opposition, and so it proved.
But they attained the end which the unseen directors
undoubtedly had in view. They roused public atten-
tion as it had never been roused before in England on
this subject. No better testimony in proof of that
could be had than that of their strongest opponent,
Mr. J. N. Maskelyne, the celebrated conjurer. He
writes : * " Certain it is, England was completely
taken aback for a time by the wonders presented by
these jugglers." He further adds :

The Brothers did more than all other men to familiarize
England with the so-called Spiritualism, and before crowded
audiences and under varied conditions, they produced really
wonderful feats. The hole-and-corner stances of other
media, where with darkness or semi-darkness, and a pliant,
or frequently a devoted assembly, manifestations are occa-
sionally said to occur, cannot be compared with the Daven-
port exhibitions in their effect upon the public mind.

Their first stance in London, a private one, was
held on September 28, 1864, at the residence in
Regent Street of Mr. Dion Boucicault, the famous
actor and author, in the presence of leading newspaper
men and distinguished men of science. The Press
reports of the stance were remarkably full and, for a
wonder, fair.

The account in the Morning Post the next day

* " Modern Spiritualism," p. 65.
223

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

says that the guests were invited to make the most
critical examination and to take all needful precautions
against fraud or deception, and continues:

The party invited to witness the manifestations last
night consisted of some twelve or fourteen individuals,
all of whom are admitted to be of considerable distinction
in the various professions with which they are connected.
The majority have never previously witnessed anything of
the kind. All, however, were determined to detect and
if possible expose any attempt at deception. The Brothers
Davenport are slightly built, gentleman-like in appearance,
and about the last persons in the world from whom any
great muscular performances might be expected. Mr.
Fay is apparently a few years older, and of more robust
constitution.

After describing what occurred, the writer goes
on:

All that can be asserted is, that the displays to which
we have referred took place on the present occasion under
conditions and circumstances that preclude the presumption
of fraud.

The Times, the Daily Telegraph, and other news-
papers published long and honest reports. We omit
quotations from them because the following important
statement from Mr. Dion Boucicault, which appeared
in the Daily News as well as in many other London
journals, covers all the facts. It describes a later
seance at Mr. Boucicault's house on October i r, 1864,
at which were present, among others Viscount Bury,
M.P., Sir Charles Wyke, Sir Charles Nicholson, the
Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Mr. Robert

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

Chambers, Charles Reade, the novelist, and Captain
Inglefield, the Arctic explorer.

SIR,

A seance by the Brothers Davenport and Mr. W. Fay
took place in my house yesterday in the presence of ...
(here he mentions twenty-four names including all those
already quoted). . . .

At three o'clock our party was fully assembled. . . .
We sent to a neighbouring music-seller for six guitars and
two tambourines, so that the implements to be used should
not be those with which the operators were familiar.

At half-past three the Davenport Brothers and Mr.
Fay arrived, and found that we had altered their arrange-
ments by changing the room which they had previously
selected for their manifestations.

The seance then began by an examination of the dress
and persons of the Brothers Davenport, and it was certified
that no apparatus or other contrivance was concealed on or
about their persons. They entered the cabinet, and sat
facing each other. Captain Inglefield then, with a new rope
provided by ourselves, tied Mr. W. Davenport hand and
foot, with his hands behind his back, and then bound him
firmly to the seat where he sat. Lord Bury, in like manner,
secured Mr. I. Davenport. The knots on these ligatures
were then fastened with sealing-wax, and a seal was affixed.
A guitar, violin, tambourine, two bells, and a brass trumpet
were placed on the floor of the cabinet. The doors were
then closed, and a sufficient light was permitted in the room
to enable us to see what followed.

I shall omit any detailed account of the babel of sounds
which arose in the cabinet, and the violence with which the
doors were repeatedly burst open and the instruments
expelled ; the hands appearing, as usual, at a lozenge-
shaped orifice in the centre door of the cabinet. The
following incidents seem to us particularly worthy of note :

p 225

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

While Lord Bury was stooping inside the cabinet, the
door being open and the two operators seen to be sealed
and bound, a detached hand was clearly observed to descend
upon him, and he started back, remarking that a hand had
struck him. Again, in the full light of the gas chandelier
and during an interval in the se*ance, the doors of the cabinet
being open, and while the ligatures of the Brothers Daven-
port were being examined, a very white, thin, female hand
and wrist quivered for several seconds in the air above.
This appearance drew a general exclamation from all the
party.

Sir Charles Wyke now entered the cabinet and sat
between the two young men his hands being right and
left on each, and secured to them. The doors were then
closed, and the babel of sounds recommenced. Several
hands appeared at the orifice among them the hand of a
child. After a space, Sir Charles returned amongst us
and stated that while he held the two brothers, several
hands touched his face and pulled his hair \ the instruments
at his feet crept up, played round his body and over his head
one of them lodging eventually on his shoulders. During
the foregoing incidents the hands which appeared were
touched and grasped by Captain Inglefield, and he stated
that to the touch they were apparently human hands,
though they passed away from his grasp.

I omit mentioning other phenomena, an account of
which has already been rendered elsewhere.

The next part of the seance was performed in the
dark. One of the Messrs. Davenport and Mr. Fay seated
themselves amongst us. Two ropes were thrown at their
feet, and in two minutes and a half they were tied hand
and foot, their hands behind their backs bound tightly
to their chairs, and their chairs bound to an adjacent table.
While this process was going on, the guitar rose from the
table and swung or floa ed round the room and over the
226

THE DA7ENPORT BROTHERS

heads of the party, and slightly touching some. Now a
phosphoric light shot from side to side over our heads;
the laps and hands and shoulders of several were simul-
taneously touched, struck, or pawed by hands, the guitar
meanwhile sailing round the room, now near the ceiling,
and then scuffling on the head and shoulders of some luck-
less wight. The bells whisked here and there, and a light
thrumming was maintained on the violin. The two tam-
bourines seemed to roll hither and thither on the floor,
now shaking violently, and now visiting the knees and
hands of our circle all these foregoing actions, audible or
tangible, being simultaneous. Mr. Rideout, holding a
tambourine, requested it might be plucked from his hand ;
it was almost instantaneously taken from him. At the same
time, Lord Bury made a similar request, and a forcible
attempt to pluck a tambourine from his grasp was made
which he resisted. Mr. Fay then asked that his coat
should be removed. We heard instantly a violent twitch,
and here occurred the most remarkable fact. A light was
struck before the coat had quite left Mr. Fay's person,
and it was seen quitting him, plucked off him upwards.
It flew up to the chandelier, where it hung for a moment
and then fell to the ground. Mr. Fay was seen mean-
while bound hand and foot as before. One of our party
now divested himself of his coat, and it was placed on the
table. The light was extinguished and this coat was rushed
on to Mr. Fay's back with equal rapidity. During the
above occurrences in the dark, we placed a sheet of paper
under the feet of these two operators, and drew with a
pencil an outline around them, to the end that if they moved
it might be detected. They of their own accord offered to
have their hands filled with flour, or any other similar
substance, to prove they made no use of them, but this
precaution was deemed unnecessary ; we required them,
however, to count from one to twelve repeatedly, that their

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

voices constantly heard might certify to us that they were
in the places where they were tied. Each of our own party
held his neighbour firmly, so that no one could move
without two adjacent neighbours being aware of it.

At the termination of this seance, a general conversation
took place on the subject of what we had heard and wit-
nessed. Lord Bury suggested that the general opinion
seemed to be that we should assure the Brothers Davenport
and Mr. W. Fay that after a very stringent trial and strict
scrutiny of their proceedings, the gentlemen present could
arrive at no other conclusion than that there was no trace
of trickery in any form, and certainly there were neither
confederates nor machinery, and that all those who had wit-
nessed the results would freely state in the society in which
they moved that, so far as their investigations enabled them
to form an opinion, the phenomena which had taken place
in their presence were not the product of legerdemain.
This suggestion was promptly acceded to by all present.

There is a concluding paragraph in which Mr.
Dion Boucicault states that he is not a Spiritualist, and
at the close of the report his name and the date are
affixed.

This wonderfully full and lucid account is given
without abbreviation because it supplies the answer to
many objections, and because the character of the
narrator and the witnesses cannot be questioned. It
surely must be accepted as quite final so far as
honesty is concerned. All subsequent objections are
mere ignorance of the facts.

In October, 1864, the Davenports began to give
public stances at the Queen's Concert Rooms, Han-
over Square. Committees were appointed from the
audience, and every effort made to detect how it was

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

all done, but without avail. These stances, inter-
spersed with private ones, were continued almost
nightly until the close of the year. The daily Press
was full of accounts of them, and the brothers' names
were on everyone's lips. Early in 1865 they toured the
English provinces, and in Liverpool, Huddersfield, and
Leeds they suffered violence at the hands of excited
mobs. At Liverpool, in February, two members of
the audience tied their hands so brutally that blood
flowed, and Mr. Ferguson cut the rope and released
them. The Davenports refused to continue, and the
mob rushed the platform and smashed up the cabinet.
The same tactics were resorted to at Huddersfield on
February 21, and then at Leeds with increased vio-
lence, the result of organized opposition. These riots
led to the Davenports cancelling any other engage-
ments in England. They next went to Paris, where
they received a summons to appear at the Palace of
St. Cloud, where the Emperor and Empress and a
party of about forty witnessed a stance. While in
Paris, Hamilton, the successor of the celebrated con-
jurer, Robert Houdin, visited them, and in a letter to
a Paris newspaper, he said: "The phenomena sur-
passed my expectations, and the experiments are full
of interest for me. I consider it my duty to add
they are inexplicable." After a return visit to
London, Ireland was visited at the beginning of
1866. In Dublin they had many influential sitters,
including the editor of the Irish Times and the
Rev. Dr. Tisdal, who publicly proclaimed his belief
in the manifestations.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

In April of the same year the Davenports went to
Hamburg and then to Berlin, but the expected war
(which their guides told them would come about)
made the trip unremunerative. Theatre managers
offered them liberal terms for exhibitions, but, heeding
the advice of their ever-present spirit monitor, who said
that their manifestations, being supernatural, should
be kept above the level of theatrical entertainments,
they declined, though much against the wish of their
business manager. During their month's stay in
Berlin they were visited by members of the Royal
family. After three weeks in Hamburg they pro-
ceeded to Belgium, where considerable success was
attained in Brussels, and all the principal towns. They
next went to Russia, arriving in St. Petersburg on
December 27, 1866. On January 7, 1867, they gave
their first public seance to an audience numbering one
thousand. The next stance was at the residence of the
French Ambassador to a gathering of about fifty
people, including officers of the Imperial Court, and
on January 9 they gave a stance in the Winter Palace
to the Emperor and the Imperial family. They after-
wards visited Poland and Sweden. On April 1 1 ,
1868, they reappeared in London at the Hanover
Square Rooms, and received an enthusiastic, welcome
from a crowded audience. Mr. Benjamin Coleman,
a prominent Spiritualist, who arranged their first
public stances in London, writing at this time of
their stay of close on four years in Europe,
says : *

* Spiritual Magazine, 1868, p. 321.
230

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

I desire to convey to those of my friends in America
who introduced them to me, the assurance of my convic-
tion that the Brothers' mission to Europe has been of great
service to Spiritualism ; that their public conduct as
mediums in which relation I alone know them has been
steady and unexceptionable.

He adds that he knows no form of mediumship
better adapted for a large audience than theirs. After
this visit to London the Davenports returned home to
America. The brothers visited Australia in 1876,
and on August 24 gave their first public stance in
Melbourne. William died in Sydney in July, 1877.

Throughout their career the Davenport Brothers
excited the deep envy and malice of the conjur-
ing fraternity. Maskelyne, with amazing effrontery,
pretended to have exposed them in England. His
claims in this direction have been well answered by
Dr. George Sexton, a former editor of the Spiritual
Magazine, who described in public, in the presence
of Mr. Maskelyne, how his tricks were done, and
comparing them with the results achieved by the
Davenports, said : " The two bear about as much
resemblance to each other as the productions of the
poet Close to the sublime and glorious dramas of the
immortal bard of Avon." * Still the conjurers made
more noise in public than the Spiritualists, and with
the Press to support them they made the general public
believe that the Davenport Brothers had been exposed.

In announcing the death in America of Ira Daven-
port in 1911, Light comments on the outpouring of

* Address at Cavendish Rooms, London, June 15, 1873.
231

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

journalistic ignorance for which it furnished the oppor-
tunity. The Daily News is quoted as saying of the
brothers : " They made the mistake of appearing as
sorcerers instead of as honest conjurers. If, like their
conqueror, Maskelyne, they had thought of saying,
' It's so simple,' the brethren might have achieved not
only fortune but respectability." In reply to this,
Light asks why, if they were mere conjurers and not
honest believers in their mediumship, did the Daven-
port Brothers endure hardships, insults, and injuries,
and suffer the indignities that were put upon them,
when by renouncing their claims to mediumship they
might have been " respectable " and rich ?

An inevitable remark on the part of those who are
not able to detect trickery is to ask what elevating pur-
pose can be furthered by phenomena such as those
observed with the Davenports. The well-known
author and sturdy Spiritualist, William Howitt, has
given a good answer :

Are these who play tricks and fling about instruments
spirits from Heaven ? Can God really send such ? Yes,
God sends them, to teach us this, if nothing more : that He
has servants of all grades and tastes ready to do all kinds of
work, and He has here sent what you call low and harlequin
spirits to a low and very sensual age. Had He sent
anything higher it would have gone right over the heads of
their audiences. As it is, nine-tenths cannot take in what
they see.

It is a sad reflection that the Davenports probably
the greatest mediums of their kind that the world has
ever seen suffered throughout their lives from brutal

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

opposition and even persecution. Many times they
were in danger of their lives.

One is forced to think that there could be no
clearer evidence of the influence of the dark forces
of evil than the prevailing hostility to all spiritual
manifestations.

Touching this aspect, Mr. Randall says : *

There seems to be a sort of chronic dislike, almost
hatred, in the minds of some persons toward any and every
thing spiritual. It seems as if it were a vapour floating, in
the air a kind of mental spore flowing through the spaces,
and breathed in by the great multitude of humankind,
which kindles a rankly poisonous fire in their hearts against
all those whose mission it is to bring peace on earth and good
will to men. The future men and women of the world will
marvel greatly at those now living, when they shall, as they
will, read that the Davenports, and all other mediums, were
forced to encounter the most inveterate hostility ; that they,
and the writer among them, were compelled to endure
horrors baffling description, for no other offence than
trying to convince the multitude that they were not beasts
that perish and leave no sign, but immortal, deathless,
grave-surviving souls.

Mediums alone are capable of demonstrating the fact of
man's continued existence after death; and yet (strange
inconsistency of human nature !) the very people who
persecute these, their truest and best friends, and fairly
hound them to premature death or despair, are the very ones
who freely lavish all that wealth can give upon those whose
office it is merely to guess at human immortality.

In discussing the claims of various professional
magicians to have exposed or imitated the Daven-
ports, Sir Richard Burton said:

* Biography, p. 82.
233

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

I have spent a great part of my life in Oriental lands,
and have seen their many magicians. Lately I have been
permitted to see and be present at the performances of
Messrs. Anderson and Tolmaque. The latter showed,
as they profess, clever conjuring, but they do not even
attempt what the Messrs. Davenport and Fay succeed in
doing : for instance, the beautiful management of the
musical instruments. Finally, I have read and listened
to every explanation of the Davenport " tricks " hitherto
placed before the English public, and, believe me, if any-
thing would make me take that tremendous jump " from
matter to spirit," it is the utter and complete unreason
of the reasons by which the " manifestations " are explained.

It is to be remarked that the Davenports them-
selves, as contrasted with their friends and travelling
companions, never claimed any preternatural origin
for their results. The reason for this may have been
that as an entertainment it was more piquant and less
provocative when every member of the audience could
form his own solution. Writing to the American con-
jurer Houdini, Ira Davenport said in his old age, " We
never in public affirmed our belief in Spiritualism.
That we regarded as no business of the public, nor did
we offer our entertainment as the result of sleight-of-
hand, or, on the other hand, as Spiritualism. We let
our friends and foes settle that as best they could
between themselves, but, unfortunately, we were
often the victims of their disagreements."

Houdini further claimed that Davenport admitted
that his results were normally effected, but Houdini
has himself stuffed so many errors of fact into his book,
" A Magician Among the Spirits," and has shown

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

such extraordinary bias on the whole question, that his
statement carries no weight. The letter which he pro-
duces makes no such admission. A further statement
quoted as being made by Ira Davenport is demon-
strably false. It is that the instruments never left the
cabinet. As a matter of fact, The Times representative
was severely struck in the face by a floating guitar, his
brow being cut, and on several occasions when a light
was struck instruments dropped all over the room. If
Houdini has completely misunderstood this latter
statement, it is not likely that he is very accurate
upon the former (vide Appendix),

It may be urged, and has been urged, by Spiritual-
ists as well as by sceptics that such mountebank
psychic exhibitions are undignified and unworthy.
There are many of us who think so, and yet there
are many others who would echo these words of
Mr. P. B. Randall :

The fault lies not with the immortals, but in us ; for,
as is the demand, so is the supply. If we cannot be reached
in one way, we must be, and are, reached in another ;
and the wisdom of the eternal world gives the blind race
just as much as it can bear and no more. If we are intel-
lectual babes, we must put up with mental pap till our
digestive capacities warrant and demand stronger food ;
and, if people can best be convinced of immortality by
spiritual pranks and antics, the ends resorted to justify
the means. The sight of a spectral arm in an audience
of three thousand persons will appeal to more hearts, make
a deeper impression, and convert more people to a belief
in their hereafter, in ten minutes, than a whole regiment
of preachers, no matter how eloquent, could in five years.

CHAPTER XI

THE RESEARCHES OF SIR WILLIAM CROOKES
(1870-1874)

THE research into the phenomena of Spiritualism
by Sir William Crookes or Professor Crookes,
as he then was during the years from 1870 to
1 874 is one of the outstanding incidents in the history
of the movement. It is notable on account of the high
scientific standing of the inquirer, the stern and yet
just spirit in which the inquiry was conducted, the
extraordinary results, and the uncompromising declar-
ation of faith which followed them. It has been a
favourite device of the opponents of the movement to
attribute some physical weakness or growing senility
to each fresh witness to psychic truth, but none can
deny that these researches were carried out by a man
at the very zenith of his mental development, and that
the famous career which followed was a sufficient
proof of his intellectual stability. It is to be remarked
that the result was to prove the integrity not only of
the medium Florence Cook with whom the more
sensational results were obtained, but also that of
D. D. Home and of Miss Kate Fox, who were also
severely tested.

Sir William Crookes, who was born in 1832 and
died in 1 9 1 9, was pre-eminent in the world of science.
236

SIR WILLIAM CROOKES

from the fainting by P. Lttiovici in the National Portrait Gallery

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1863, he
received from this body in 1875 a Royal Gold Medal
for his various chemical and physical researches, the
Davy Medal in 1888, and the Sir Joseph Copley Medal
in 1904. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in
1897, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1910.
He occupied the position of President at different
times of the Royal Society, the Chemical Society, the
Institution of Electrical Engineers, the British Asso-
ciation, and the Society for Psychical Research. His
discovery of the new chemical element which he
named " Thallium," his inventions of the radiometer,
the spinthariscope, and the " Crookes' tube," only
represent a slight part of his great research. He
founded in 1859 the Chemical News, which he
edited, and in 1864 he became editor of the
Quarterly Journal of Science. In 1880 the French
Academy of Sciences awarded him a gold medal
and a prize of 3,000 francs in recognition of his
important work.

Crookes confesses that he began his investigations
into psychical phenomena believing that the whole
matter might prove to be a trick. His scientific
brethren held the same view, and were delighted at the
course he had adopted. Profound satisfaction was
expressed because the subject was to be investigated
by a man so thoroughly qualified. They had little
doubt that what were considered to be the sham pre-
tensions of Spiritualism would now be exposed. One
writer said, " If men like Mr. Crookes grapple with
the subject ... we shall soon know how much to
237

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

believe." Dr. (afterwards Professor) Balfour Stewart,
in a communication to Nature, commended the bold-
ness and honesty which had led Mr. Crookes to take
this step. Crookes himself took the view that it was
the duty of scientists to make such investigation. He
writes : " It argues ill for the boasted freedom of
opinion among scientific men that they have so long
refused to institute a scientific investigation into the
existence and nature of facts asserted by so many com-
petent and credible witnesses, and which they are
freely invited to examine when and where they please.
For my own part, I too much value the pursuit of
truth, and the discovery of any new fact in Nature, to
avoid inquiry because it appears to clash with pre-
vailing opinions." In this spirit he began his
inquiry.

It should be stated, however, that though Pro-
fessor Crookes was sternly critical as to the physical
phenomena, already he had had acquaintance with the
mental phenomena, and would appear to have accepted
them. Possibly this sympathetic spiritual attitude
may have aided him in obtaining his remarkable
results, for it cannot be too often repeated because it
is too often forgotten that psychic research of the
best sort is really " psychic," and depends upon
spiritual conditions. It is not the bumptious self-
opinionated man, sitting with a ludicrous want of pro-
portion as a judge upon spiritual matters, who attains
results; but it is he who appreciates that the strict use
of reason and observation is not incompatible with
humility of mind, and that courteous gentleness of

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

demeanour which makes for harmony and sympathy
between the inquirer and his subject.

Crookes's less material inquiries seem to have
begun in the summer of 1869. In July of that year
he had sittings with the well-known medium, Mrs.
Marshall, and in December with another famous
medium, J. J. Morse. In July, 1869, D. D. Home
who had been giving stances in St. Petersburg,
returned to London with a letter of introduction
to Crookes from Professor Butlerof.

An interesting fact emerges from a private diary
kept by Crookes during his voyage to Spain in
December, 1870, with the Eclipse Expedition. Under
the date December 3 1, he writes : *

I cannot help reverting in thought to this time last
year. Nelly (his wife) and I were then sitting together
in communion with dear departed friends, and as twelve
o'clock struck they wished us many happy New Years.
I feel that they are looking on now, and as space is no
obstacle to them, they are, I believe, looking over my dear
Nelly at the same time. Over us both I know there is one
whom we all spirits as well as mortals bow down to as
Father and Master, and it is my humble prayer to Him
the Great Good as the mandarin calls Him that He will
continue His merciful protection to Nelly and me and our
dear little family. . . . May He also allow us to continue
to receive spiritual communications from my brother who
passed over the boundary when in a ship at sea more than
three years ago.

He further adds New Year loving greetings to his wife
and children, and concludes :

* " Life of Sir William Crookes." By E. E. Fournier d'Albe, 1923.
239

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

And when the earthly years have ended may we con-
tinue to spend still happier ones in the spirit land, glimpses
of which I am occasionally getting.

Miss Florence Cook, with whom Crookes under-
took his classical series of experiments, was a young girl
of fifteen who was asserted to possess strong psychic
powers, taking the rare shape of complete material-
ization. It would appear to have been a family
characteristic, for her sister, Miss Kate Cook, was not
less famous. There had been some squabble with an
alleged exposure in which a Mr. Volckman had taken
sides against Miss Cook, and in her desire for vindica-
tion she placed herself entirely under the protection of
Mrs. Crookes, declaring that her husband might make
any experiments upon her powers under his own con-
ditions, and asking for no reward save that he should
clear her character as a medium by giving his exact
conclusions to the world. Fortunately, she was deal-
ing with a man of unswerving intellectual honesty.
We have had experience in these latter days of
mediums giving themselves up in the same unre-
served way to scientific investigation and being
betrayed by the investigators, who had not the moral
courage to admit those results which would have
entailed their own public acceptance of the spiritual
interpretation.

Professor Crookes published a full account of his
methods in the Quarterly Journal of Science., of which
he was then editor. In his house at Mornington Road
a small study opened into the chemical laboratory, a
door with a curtain separating the two rooms. Miss
240

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

Cook lay entranced upon a couch in the inner room.
In the outer in subdued light sat Crookes, with such
other observers as he invited. At the end of a period
which varied from twenty minutes to an hour the
materialized figure was built up from the ectoplasm
of the medium. The existence of this substance and
its method of production were unknown at that date,
but subsequent research has thrown much light upon
it, an account of which has been embodied in the
chapter on ectoplasm. The actual effect was that
the curtain was opened, and there emerged into the
laboratory a female who was usually as different from
the medium as two people could be. This apparition,
which could move, talk, and act in all ways as an
independent entity, is known by the name which she
herself claimed as her own, " Katie King."

The natural explanation of the sceptic is that the
two women were really the same woman, and that
Katie was a clever impersonation of Florence. The
objector could strengthen his case by the observation
made not only by Crookes but by Miss Marryat and
others, that there were times when Katie was very like
Florence.

Herein lies one of the mysteries of materialization
which call for careful consideration rather than sneers.
The author, sitting with Miss Besinnet, the famous
American medium, has remarked the same thing,
the psychic faces beginning when the power was weak
by resembling those of the medium, and later becom-
ing utterly unlike. Some speculators have imagined
that the etheric form of the medium, her spiritual

Q 241

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

body, has been liberated by the trance, and is the basis
upon which the other manifesting entities build up
their own simulacra. However that may be, the fact
has to be admitted ; and it is paralleled by Direct Voice
phenomena, where the voice often resembles that of
the medium at first and then takes an entirely different
tone, or divides into two voices speaking at the same
time.

However, the student has certainly the right to
claim that Florence Cook and Katie King were the
same individual until convincing evidence is laid before
him that this is impossible. Such evidence Professor
Crookes is very careful to give.

The points of difference which he observed
between Miss Cook and Katie are thus described:

Katie's height varies ; in my house I have seen her
six inches taller than Miss Cook. Last night, with bare
feet and not tip-toeing, she was four and a half inches taller
than Miss Cook. Katie's neck was bare last night ; the
skin was perfectly smooth both to touch and sight, whilst
on Miss Cook's neck is a large blister, which under similar
circumstances is distinctly visible and rough to the touch.
Katie's ears are unpierced, whilst Miss Cook habitually
wears ear-rings. Katie's complexion is very fair, while
that of Miss Cook is very dark. Katie's fingers are much
longer than Miss Cook's, and her face is also larger. In
manners and ways of expression there are also many
decided differences.

In a later contribution, he adds :

Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she has
been illuminated by the electric light, I am enabled to
add to the points of difference between her and her medium

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

which I mentioned in a former article. I have the most
absolute certainty that Miss Cook and Katie are two separate
individuals so far as their bodies are concerned. Several
little marks on Miss Cook's face are absent on Katie's.
Miss Cook's hair is so dark a brown as almost to appear
black ; a lock of Katie's, which is now before me, and which
she allowed me to cut from her luxuriant tresses, having first
traced it up to the scalp and satisfied myself that it actually
grew there, is a rich golden auburn.

On one evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat steadily
at 75, whilst Miss Cook's pulse a little time after was going
at its usual rate of 90. On applying my ear to Katie's
chest, I could hear a heart beating rhythmically inside, and
pulsating even more steadily than did Miss Cook's heart
when she allowed me to try a similar experiment after the
stance. Tested in the same way, Katie's lungs were found
to be sounder than her medium's, for at the time I tried
my experiment Miss Cook was under medical treatment
for a severe cough.

Crookes took forty-four photographs of Katie
King by the aid of electric light. Writing in The
Spiritualist (1874, p. 270), he describes the methods
he adopted :

During the week before Katie took her departure, she
gave seances at my house almost nightly, to enable me to
photograph her by artificial light. Five complete sets of
photographic apparatus were accordingly fitted up for the
purpose, consisting of five cameras, one of the whole-plate
size, one half-plate, one quarter-plate, and two binocular
stereoscopic cameras, which were all brought to bear upon
Katie at the same time on each occasion on which she stood
for her portrait. Five sensitizing and fixing baths were
used, and plenty of plates were cleaned ready for use in
advance, so that there might be no hitch or delay during
243

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

the photographing operations, which were performed by
myself, aided by one assistant.

My library was used as a dark cabinet. It has folding
doors opening into the laboratory ; one of these doors was
taken off its hinges, and a curtain suspended in its place
to enable Katie to pass in and out easily. Those of our
friends who were present were seated in the laboratory
facing the curtain, and the cameras were placed a little
behind them, ready to photograph Katie when she came
outside, and to photograph anything also inside the cabinet,
whenever the curtain was withdrawn for the purpose.
Each evening there were three or four exposures of plates
in the five cameras, giving at least fifteen separate pictures
at each stance ; some of these were spoilt in the developing,
and some in regulating the amount of light. Altogether
I have forty-four negatives, some inferior, some indifferent,
and some excellent.

Some of these photographs are in the author's
possession, and surely there is no more wonderful
impression upon any plate than that which shows
Crookes at the height of his manhood, with this angel
for such in truth she was leaning upon his arm.
The word " angel " may seem an exaggeration, but
when an other-world spirit submits herself to the dis-
comforts of temporary and artificial existence in order
to convey the lesson of survival to a material and
worldly generation, there is no more fitting term.

Some controversy has arisen as to whether Crookes
ever saw the medium and Katie at the same moment.
Crookes says in the course of his report that he
frequently followed Katie into the cabinet, " and have
sometimes seen her and her medium together, but most
generally I have found nobody but the entranced

PROFESSOR CROOKES'S TEST TO SHOW THAT THE MEDIUM AND

THE SPIRIT WERE SEPARATE ENTITIES

From a drawiny by S. Driuin

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

medium lying on the floor, Katie and her white
robes having instantaneously disappeared."

Much more direct testimony, however, is given by
Crookes in a letter to the Banner of Light (U.S.A.),
which is reproduced in The Spiritualist (London) of
July 17, 1874, p. 29. He writes :

In reply to your request, I beg to state that I saw Miss
Cook and Katie together at the same moment, by the light
of a phosphorus lamp, which was quite sufficient to enable
me to see distinctly all I described. The human eye will
naturally take in a wide angle, and thus the two figures
were included in my field of vision at the same time, but
-the light being dim, and the two faces being several feet
apart, I naturally turned the lamp and my eyes alternately
from one to the other, when I desired to bring either Miss
Cook's or Katie's face to that portion of my field of view
where vision is most distinct. Since the occurrence here
referred to took place, Katie and Miss Cook have been seen
together by myself and eight other persons, in my own house,
illuminated by the full blaze of the electric light. On this
occasion Miss Cook's face was not visible, as her head had
to be closely bound up in a thick shawl, but I specially
satisfied myself that she was there. An attempt to throw
the light direct on to her uncovered face, when entranced,
was attended with serious consequences.

The camera, too, emphasizes the points of differ-
ence between the medium and the form. He says :

One of the most interesting of the pictures is one in
which I am standing by the side of Katie ; she has her bare
foot upon a particular part of the floor. Afterwards I
dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed her and myself in
exactly the same position, and we were photographed by the
same cameras, placed exactly as in the other experiment, and
245

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

illuminated by the same light. When these two pictures
are placed over each other, the two photographs of myself
coincide exactly as regards stature, etc., but Katie is half a
head taller than Miss Cook, and looks a big woman in
comparison with her. In the breadth of her face, in many of
the pictures, she differs essentially in size from her medium,
and the photographs show several other points of difference.

Crookes pays a high tribute to the medium,
Florence Cook :

The almost daily seances with which Miss Cook has
lately favoured me have proved a severe tax upon her
strength, and I wish to make the most public acknowledg-
ment of the obligations I am under to her for her readiness to
assist me in my experiments. Every test that I have proposed
she has at once agreed to submit to with the utmost willing-
ness ; she is open and straightforward in speech, and I have
never seen anything approaching the slightest symptom
of a wish to deceive. Indeed, I do not believe she could
carry on a deception if she were to try, and if she did she
would certainly be found out very quickly, for such a line
of action is altogether foreign to her nature. And to
imagine that an innocent schoolgirl of fifteen should be able
to conceive and then successfully carry out for three years
so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time should
submit to any test which might be imposed upon her, should
bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing to be searched
at any time, either before or after a seance, and should meet
with even better success in my own house than at that
of her parents, knowing that she visited me with the express
object of submitting to strict scientific tests-to imagine
I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be the rLh
of imposture, does more violence to one's reason and
common sense than to believe her to be what she herself

Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism "
246

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

Granting that a temporary form was built up from
the ectoplasm of Florence Cook, and that this form
was then occupied and used by an independent being
who called herself " Katie King," we are still faced
with the question, " Who was Katie King ? " To this
we can only give the answer which she gave herself,
while admitting that we have no proof of it. She
declared that she was the daughter of John King, who
had long been known among Spiritualists as the pre-
siding spirit at seances held for material phenomena.
His personality is discussed later in the chapter upon
the Eddy brothers and Mrs. Holmes, to which the
reader is referred. Her earth name had been Morgan,
and King was rather the general title of a certain class
of spirits than an ordinary name. Her life had been
spent two hundred years before, in the reign of Charles
the Second, in the island of Jamaica. Whether this be
true or not, she undoubtedly conformed to the part,
and her general conversation was consistent with her
account. One of the daughters of Professor Crookes
wrote to the author and described her vivid recol-
lection of tales of the Spanish Main told by this kindly
spirit to the children of the family. She made herself
beloved by all. Mrs. Crookes wrote :

At a stance with Miss Cook in our own house when
one of our sons was an infant of three weeks old,
Katie King, a materialized spirit, expressed the liveliest
interest in him and asked to be allowed to see the baby.
The infant was accordingly brought into the stance room
and placed in the arms of Katie, who, after holding him
in the most natural way for a short time, smilingly gave
him back again.

247

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Professor Crookes has left it on record that her
beauty and charm were unique in his experience.

The reader may reasonably think that the subdued
light which has been alluded to goes far to vitiate the
results by preventing exact observation. Professor
Crookes has assured us, however, that as the series of
stances proceeded toleration was established, and the
figure was able to bear a far greater degree of light.
This toleration had its limits, however, which were
never passed by Professor Crookes, but which were
tested to the full in a daring experiment described
by Miss Florence Marry at (Mrs. Ross-Church). It
should be stated that Professor Crookes was not pre-
sent at this experience, nor did Miss Marryat ever
claim that he was. She mentions, however, the name
of Mr. Carter Hall as being one of the company pre-
sent. Katie had very good-humouredly consented to
testing what the effect would be if a full light were
turned upon her image :

She took up her station against the drawing-room wall,
with her arms extended as if she were crucified. Then
three gas-burners were turned on to their full extent in a
room about sixteen feet square. The effect upon Katie
King was marvellous, She looked like herself for the space
of a second only, then she began gradually to melt away
I can compare the dematerialization of her form to nothing
but a wax doll melting before a hot fire. First the features
became blurred and indistinct ; they seemed to run into
each other. The eyes sunk in the sockets, the nose dis-
appeared, the frontal bone fell in. Next the limbs appeared

nV^ 7rT ' ^ T 1 She Sank lower and ^ on
the carpet, hke a crumbling edifice. At last there was

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

nothing but her head left above the ground then a heap
of white drapery only, -which disappeared with a whisk,
as if a hand had pulled it after her and we were left staring
by the light of three gas-burners at the spot on which
Katie King had stood.*

Miss Marryat adds the interesting detail that at
some of these stances Miss Cook's hair was nailed to
the ground, which did not in the least interfere with
the subsequent emergence of Katie from the cabinet.

The results obtained in his own home were
honestly and fearlessly reported by Professor Crookes
in his Journal, and caused the greatest possible com-
motion in the scientific world. A few of the larger
spirits, men like Russel Wallace, Lord Rayleigh,
the young and rising physicist William Barrett,
Cromwell Varley, and others, had their former
views confirmed, or were encouraged to advance
upon a new path of knowledge. There was a fiercely
intolerant party, however, headed by Carpenter the
physiologist, who derided the matter and were ready
to impute anything from lunacy to fraud to their
illustrious colleague. Organized science came badly
out of the matter. In his published account Crookes
gave the letters in which he asked Stokes, the secre-
tary of the Royal Society, to come down and see
these things with his own eyes. By his refusal to do
so, Stokes placed himself in exactly the same position
as those cardinals who would not look at the moons
of Jupiter through Galileo's telescope. Material
science, when faced with a new problem, showed itself
to be just as bigoted as medieval theology.

* " There Is No Death," p. 143.
249

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

Before quitting the subject of Katie King one
should say a few words as to the future of the great
medium from whom she had her physical being. Miss
Cook became Mrs. Corner, but continued to exhibit
her remarkable powers. The author is only aware of
one occasion upon which the honesty of her medium-
ship was called in question, and that was when she was
seized by Sir George Sitwell and accused of person-
ating a spirit. The author is of opinion that a mate-
rializing medium should always be secured so that she
cannot wander around and this as a protection against
herself. It is unlikely that she will move in deep
trance, but in the half-trance condition there is
nothing to prevent her unconsciously, or semi-con-
sciously, or in obedience to suggestion from the ex-
pectations of the circle, wandering out of the cabinet
into the room. It is a reflection of our own ignorance
that a lifetime of proof should be clouded by a single
episode of this nature. It is worthy of remark, how-
ever, that upon this occasion the observers agreed that
the figure was white, whereas when Mrs. Corner was
seized no white was to be seen. An experienced in-
vestigator would probably have concluded that this
was not a materialization, but a transfiguration, which
means that the ectoplasm, being insufficient to build
up a complete figure, has been used to drape the
medium so that she herself may carry the simulacrum
Commenting upon such cases, the great German
investigator, Dr. Schrenck Notzing, says :*

This (a photograph) is interesting as throwing a light on

* "Phenomena of Materialization" (English Translation).

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

the genesis of the so-called transfiguration, i.e. . . . the
medium takes upon herself the part of the spirit, endeavour-
ing to dramatize the character of the person in question by
clothing herself in the materialized fabrics. This transi-
tion stage is found in nearly all materialization mediums.
The literature of the subject records a large number of
attempts at exposure of mediums thus impersonating
" spirits," e.g. that of the medium Bastian by the Crown
Prince Rudolph, that of Crookes's medium, Miss Cook,
that of Madame d'Esperance, etc. In all these cases the
medium was seized, but the fabrics used for masking
immediately disappeared, and were not afterwards found.

It would appear, then, that the true reproach in
such cases lies with the negligent sitters rather than
with the unconscious medium.

The sensational nature of Professor Crookes's ex-
periments with Miss Cook, and the fact, no doubt, that
they seemed more vulnerable to attack, have tended
to obscure his very positive results with Home and
with Miss Fox, which have established the powers of
those mediums upon a solid basis. Crookes soon found
the usual difficulties which researchers encounter, but
he had sense enough to realize that in an entirely new
subject one has to adapt oneself to the conditions,
and not abandon the study in disgust because the
conditions refuse to adapt themselves to our own
preconceived ideas. Thus, in speaking of Home,
he says :

The experiments I have tried have been very numerous,
but owing to our imperfect knowledge of the conditions
which favour or oppose the manifestations of this force,
to the apparently capricious manner in which it is exerted,

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

and to the fact that Mr. Home himself is subject to unac-
countable ebbs and flows of the force, it has but seldom
happened that a result obtained on one occasion could be
subsequently confirmed and tested with apparatus specially
contrived for the purpose.*

The most marked of these results was the alteration
in the weight of objects, which was afterwards so com-
pletely confirmed by Dr. Crawford working with the
Goligher circle, and also in the course of the " Mar-
gery " investigation at Boston. ' Heavy objects could
be made light, and light ones heavy, by the action of
some unseen force which appeared to be under the
influence of an independent intelligence. The checks
by which all possible fraud was eliminated are very
fully set out in the record of the experiments, and must
convince any unprejudiced reader. Dr. Huggins, the
well-known authority on the spectroscope, and Ser-
jeant Cox, the eminent lawyer, together with several
other spectators, witnessed the experiments. As
already recorded, however, Crookes found it impos-
sible to get some of the official heads of science to
give the matter one hour of their attention.

The playing upon musical instruments, especially
an accordion, under circumstances when it was impos-
sible to reach the notes, was another of the phenomena
which was very thoroughly examined and then cer-
^fied by Crookes and his distinguished assistants
Granting that the medium has himself the knowledge

atht Isn t enaWe "T t0 ^ ^ inSt ~> the
author is not prepared to admit that such a pheno-

* " Rescues the Phenomena of Spiritualism," p. I0 .
252

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

menon is an absolute proof of independent intelligence.
When once the existence of an etheric body is granted,
with limbs which correspond with our own, there is no
obvious reason why a partial detachment should not
take place, and why the etheric fingers should not be
placed upon the keys while the material ones remain
upon the medium's lap. The problem resolves itself,
then, into the simpler proposition that the medium's
brain can command his etheric fingers, and that those
fingers can be supplied with sufficient force to press
down the keys. Very many psychic phenomena, the
reading with blindfolded eyes, the touching of dis-
tant objects, and so forth, may, in the opinion of the
author, be referred to the etheric body and may be
classed rather under a higher and subtler materialism
than under Spiritualism. They are in a class quite
distinct from those mental phenomena such as evi-
dential messages from the dead, which form the true
centre of the spiritual movement. In speaking of
Miss Kate Fox, Professor Crookes says : "I have
observed many circumstances which appear to show
that the will and intelligence of the medium have much
to do with the phenomena." He adds that this is not
in any conscious or dishonest way, and continues,
" I have observed some circumstances which seem
conclusively to point to the agency of an outside
intelligence not belonging to any human being in
the room." * This is the point which the author has
attempted to make as expressed by an authority far
higher than his own.

253

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
The phenomena which were chiefly established in
the investigation of Miss Kate Fox were the movement
of objects at a distance, and the production of per-
cussive sounds or raps. The latter covered a great
range of sound, " delicate ticks . . . sharp sounds as
from an induction coil in full work, detonations in the
air, sharp metallic taps, a crackling like that heard
when a frictional machine is at work, sounds like
scratching, the twittering as of a bird, etc." * All of
us who have had experience of these sounds have been
compelled to ask ourselves how far they are under
the control of the medium. The author has come
to the conclusion, as already stated, that up to a point
they are under the control of the medium, and that
beyond that point they are not. He cannot easily
forget the distress and embarrassment of a great
North-country medium when in the author's presence
loud raps, sounding like the snapping of fingers,
broke out round his head in the coffee-room of a
Doncaster hotel. If he had any doubts that raps
were independent of the medium they were finally
set at rest upon that occasion. As to the objectivity
of these noises, Crookes says of Miss Kate Fox :

It seems only necessary for her to place her hand on
any substance for loud thuds to be heard in it, like a triple
pulsation, sometimes loud enough to be heard several
rooms off. In this manner I have heard them in a living
tree on a sheet of glasson a stretched iron wire on a
stretched membrane a tambourine on the roof of a cab
-and on the floor of a theatre. Moreover, actual contact
is not always necessary. I have had these sounds proceed-

* "Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualirai," p. 86.

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

ing from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium's hands
and feet were held when she was standing on a chair
when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling
when she was enclosed in a wire cage and when she had
fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a glass
harmonicon I have felt them on my own shoulder and
under my own hands. I have heard them on a sheet of
paper, held between the fingers by a piece of thread passed
through one corner. With a full knowledge of the
numerous theories which have been started, chiefly in
America, to explain these sounds, I have tested them in
every way that I could devise, until there has been no escape
from the conviction that they were true objective occur-
rences not produced by trickery or mechanical means.

So finishes the legend of cracking toe-joints,
dropping apples, and all the other absurd explanations
which have been put forward to explain away the
facts. It is only fair to say, however, that the painful
incidents connected with the latter days of the Fox
sisters go some way to justify those who, without
knowing the real evidence, have had their attention
drawn to that single episode which is treated else-
where.

It has sometimes been supposed that Crookes
modified or withdrew his opinions upon psychic sub-
jects as expressed in 1874. It may at least be said
that the violence of the opposition, and the timidity of
those who might have supported him, did alarm him
and that he felt his scientific position to be in danger.
Without going the length of subterfuge, he did un-
questionably shirk the question. He refused to have
his articles upon the subject republished, and he would

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

not circulate the wonderful photographs in which the
materialized Katie King stood arm-in-arm with him-
self. He was exceedingly cautious also in defining
his position. In a letter quoted by Professor Angelo
Brofferio, he says : *

All that I am concerned in is that invisible and intelli-
gent beings exist who say that they are the spirits of dead
persons. But proof that they really are the individuals
they assume to be, which I require in order to believe it,
I have never received, though I am disposed to admit
that ^ many of my friends assert that they have actually
obtained the desired proofs, and I myself have already
frequently been many times on the verge of this convic-
tion.

As he grew older, however, this conviction hard-
ened, or perhaps he became more conscious of the
moral responsibilities which such exceptional experi-
ences must entail.

In his presidential address before the British Asso-
ciation at Bristol in 1898, Sir William briefly referred
to his earlier researches. He said :

Upon one other interest I have not yet touched-to

ouce-to
me the weightiest and farthest-reaching of all. No inci-

? rto7k s r tific career is . more wideiy kn "

part I took many years ago in certain psychic researches

~

256

RESEARCHES OF SIR W. CROOKES

Nearly twenty years later his belief was stronger
than ever. In the course of an interview, he said :*

I have never had any occasion to change my mind on
the subject, I am perfectly satisfied with what I have
said in earlier days. It is quite true that a connexion has
been set up between this world and the next.

In reply to the question whether Spiritualism had
not killed the old materialism of the scientists, he
added:

I think it has. It has at least convinced the great
majority of people, who know anything about the subject,
of the existence of the next world.

The author has had an opportunity lately, through
the courtesy of Mr. Thomas Blyton, of seeing the
letter of condolence written by Sir William Crookes
on the occasion of the death of Mrs. Corner. It is
dated April 24, 1904, and in it he says: " Convey
Lady Crookes's and my own sincerest sympathy to
the family in their irreparable loss. We trust that the
certain belief that our loved ones, when they have
passed over, are still watching over us a belief which
owes so much of its certainty to the mediumship of
Mrs. Corner (or Florence Cook, as she will always be in
our memory) will strengthen and console those who
are left behind." The daughter in announcing the
death said, " She died in deep peace and happiness."

* The International Psychic Gaxettt, December, 1917, pp. 61-2.

CHAPTER XII

THE EDDY BROTHERS AND THE HOLMESES

IT is difficult within any reasonable compass to
follow the rise of various mediums in the United
States, and a study of one or two outstanding cases
must typify the whole. The years 1874 and 1875
were years of great psychic activity, bringing con-
viction to some and scandal to others. On the whole
the scandal seems to have predominated, but whether
rightly or not is a question which may well be debated.
The opponents of psychic truth having upon their
side the clergy of the various churches, organized
science, and the huge inert bulk of material mankind,
had the lay Press at their command, with the result
that everything that was in its favour was suppressed
or contorted, and everything which could tell against
it was given the widest publicity. Hence, a constant
checking of past episodes and reassessment of old
values are necessary. Even at the present day the air
is charged with prejudice. If any man of standing at
the present instant were to enter a London newspaper
office and say that he had detected a medium in fraud,
the matter would be seized upon eagerly and broad-
cast over the country; while if the same man pro-
claimed that he had beyond all question satisfied him-
self that the phenomena were true, it is doubtful if he
358

TEE EDDT BROTHERS

would get a paragraph. The scale is always heavily
weighted. In America, where there is practically no
Libel Act, and where the Press is often violent and
sensational, this state of things was and possibly is
even more in evidence.

The first outstanding incident was the mediumship
of the Eddy brothers, which has probably never been
excelled in the matter of materialization, or, as we
may now call them, ectoplasmic forms. The difficulty
at that date in accepting such phenomena lay in the
fact that they seemed to be regulated by no known
law, and to be isolated from all our experiences of
Nature. The labours of Geley, Crawford, Madame
Bisson, Schrenck Notzing and others have removed
this, and have given us, what is at the lowest, a com-
plete scientific hypothesis, sustained by prolonged and
careful investigations, so that we can bring some order
into the matter. This did not exist in 1874, and we
can well sympathize with the doubt of even the most
honest and candid minds, when they were asked to
believe that two rude farmers, unmannered and un-
educated, could produce results which were denied to
the rest of the world and utterly inexplicable to science.

The Eddy brothers, Horatio and William, were
primitive folk farming a small holding at the hamlet
of Chittenden, near Rutland, in the State of Vermont.
An observer has described them as " sensitive, distant
and curt with strangers, look more like hard-working
rough farmers than prophets or priests of a new dis-
pensation, have dark complexions, black hair and
eyes, stiff joints, a clumsy carriage, shrink from
259

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

advances, and make new-comers ill at ease and unwel-
come. They are at feud with some of their neigh-
bours and not liked. . . . They are, in fact, under
the ban of a public opinion that is not prepared or
desirous to study the phenomena as either scientific
marvels or revelations from another world."

The rumours of the strange doings which occurred
in the Eddy homestead had got abroad, and raised an
excitement similar to that caused by the Koons's
music-room in earlier days. Folk came from all
parts to investigate. The Eddys seem to have had
ample, if rude, accommodation for their guests, and
to have boarded them in a great room with the plaster
stripping off the walls and the food as simple as the
surroundings. For this board, of course s they charged
at a low rate, but they do not seem to have made any
profit out of their psychic demonstrations.

A good deal of curiosity had been aroused in
Boston and New York by the reports of what was
happening, and a New York paper, the Daily Graphic,
sent up Colonel Olcott as investigator. Olcott was
not at that time identified with any psychic movement
indeed, his mind was prejudiced against it, and he
approached his task rather in the spirit of an " ex-
poser." He was a man of clear brain and outstanding
ability, with a high sense of honour. No one can read
the very full and intimate details of his own life which
are Contained in his "Old Diary Leaves" without
feeling a respect for the man loyal to a fault, unsel-
fish, and with that rare moral courage which will
follow truth and accept results even when they oppose

THE EDDY BROTHERS

one's expectations and desires. He was no mystic
dreamer but a very practical man of affairs, and some
of his psychic research observations have met with far
less attention than they deserve.

Olcott remained for ten weeks in the Vermont
atmosphere, which must in itself have been a feat of
considerable endurance, with plain fare, hard living
and uncongenial hosts. He came away with some-
thing very near to personal dislike for his morose
entertainers, and at the same time with absolute con-
fidence in their psychic powers. Like every wise in-
vestigator, he refuses to give blank certificates of
character, and will not answer for occasions upon which
he was not present, nor for the future conduct of those
whom he is judging. He confines himself to his
actual experience, and in fifteen remarkable articles
which appeared in the New York Daily Graphic in
October and November, 1874, he gave his full results
and the steps which he had taken to check them.
Reading these, it is difficult to suggest any precaution
which he had omitted.

His first care was to examine the Eddy history.
It was a good but not a spotless record. It cannot be
too often insisted upon that the medium is a mere
instrument and that the gift has no relation to char-
acter. This applies to physical phenomena, but not
to mental, for no high teaching could ever come
through a low channel. There was nothing wrong
in the record of the brothers, but they had once
admittedly given a fake mediumistic show, announc-
ing it as such and exposing tricks. This was probably

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

done to raise the wind and also to conciliate their
bigoted neighbours, who were incensed against the
real phenomena. Whatever the cause or motive, it
naturally led Olcott to be very circumspect in his
dealings, since it showed an intimate knowledge of
tricks.

The ancestry was most interesting, for not only
was there an unbroken record of psychic power
extending over several generations, but their grand-
mother four times removed had been burned as a
witch or at least had been sentenced to that fate in
the famous Salem trials of 1692. There are many
living now who would be just as ready to take this
short way with our mediums as ever Cotton Mather
was, but police prosecutions are the modern equiva-
lent. The father of the Eddys was unhappily one of
those narrow persecuting fanatics. Olcott declares
that the children were marked for life by the blows
which he gave them in order to discourage what he
chose to look upon as diabolical powers. The mother,
who was herself strongly psychic, knew how unjustly
this " religious " brute was acting, and the home-
stead must have become a hell upon earth. There
was no refuge for the children outside, for the psychic
phenomena used to follow them even into the school-
room, and excite the revilings of the ignorant young
barbarians around them. At home, when young
Eddy fell into a trance, the father and a neighbour
poured boiling water over him and placed a red-hot
coal on his head, leaving an indelible scar. The lad
fortunately slept on. Is it to be wondered at that
262

THE EDDY BROTHERS

after such a childhood the children should have
grown into morose and secretive men ?

As they grew older the wretched father tried to
make some money out of the powers which he had
so brutally discouraged, and hired the children out
as mediums. No one has ever yet adequately de-
scribed the sufferings which public mediums used to
undergo at the hands of idiotic investigators and cruel
sceptics. Olcott testifies that the hands and arms of
the sisters as well as the brothers were grooved with
the marks of ligatures and scarred with burning sealing
wax, while two of the girls had pieces of flesh pinched
out by handcuffs. They were ridden on rails, beaten,
fired at, stoned and chased while their cabinet was
repeatedly broken to pieces. The blood oozed from
their finger-nails from the compression of arteries.
These were the early days in America, but Great
Britain has little to boast of when one recalls the
Davenport brothers and the ignorant violence of the
Liverpool mob.

The Eddys seem to have covered about the whole
range of physical mediumship. Olcott gives the list
thus rappings, movement of objects, painting in
oils and water-colours under influence, prophecy,
speaking strange tongues, healing, discernment of
spirits, levitation, writing of messages, psychometry,
clairvoyance, and finally the production of material-
ized forms. Since St. Paul first enumerated the gifts
of the spirit no more comprehensive list has ever been
given.

The method of the stances was that the medium
263

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

should sit In a cabinet at one end of the room, and
that his audience should occupy rows of benches in
front of him. The inquirer will probably ask why
there should be a cabinet at all, and extended experi-
ence has shown that it can, as a matter of fact, be
dispensed with save in this particular crowning pheno-
menon of materialization. Home never used a
cabinet, and it is seldom used by our chief British
mediums of to-day. There is, however, a very definite
reason for its presence. Without being too didactic
upon a subject which is still under examination, it may
at least be stated, as a working hypothesis with a great
deal to recommend it, that the ectoplasmic vapour
which solidifies into the plasmic substance from which
the forms are constructed can be more easily con-
densed in a limited space. It has been found, how-
ever, that the presence of the medium within that
space is not needful. At the greatest materialization
stance which the author has ever attended, where
some twenty forms of various ages and sizes appeared
in one evening, the medium sat outside the door of
the cabinet from which the shapes emerged. Pre-
sumably, according to the hypothesis, his ectoplasmic
vapour was conducted, into the confined space, irre-
spective of the position of his physical body. This
had not been recognized at the date of this investiga-
tion, so the cabinet was employed.

It is obvious, however, that the cabinet offered a

means for fraud and impersonation, so it had to be

carefully examined. It was on the second floor, with

one small window. Olcott had the window netted

264

THE EDDY BROTHERS

with a mosquito curtain fastened on the outside. The
rest of the cabinet Was solid wood and unapproachable
save by the room in which the spectators were sitting.
There seems to have been no possible opening for
fraud. Olcott had it examined by an expert, whose
certificate is given in the book.

Under these circumstances Olcott related in his
newspaper articles, and afterwards in his remarkable
book, " People from the Other World," that he saw
in the course of ten weeks no fewer than four hundred
apparitions appear out of this cabinet, of all sorts,
sizes, sexes and races, clad in the most marvellous
garments, babies in arms, Indian warriors, gentlemen
in evening dress, a Kurd with a nine-foot lance,
squaws who smoked tobacco, ladies in fine costumes.
Such was Olcott's evidence, and there was not a state-
ment he made for which he was not prepared to pro-
duce the evidence of a roomful of people. His story
was received with incredulity then, and will excite
little less incredulity now. Olcott, full of his subject
and knowing his own precautions, chafed, as all of us
chafe, at the criticism of those who had not been pre-
sent, and who chose to assume that those who were
present were dupes and simpletons. He says: " If
one tells them of babies being carried in from the
cabinet by women, of young girls with lithe forms,
yellow hair and short stature, of old women and men
standing in full sight and speaking to us, of half-
grown children seen, two at a time, simultaneously
with another form, of costumes of different makes,
of bald heads, grey hair, black shocky heads of hair,
265

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

curly hair, of ghosts instantly recognized by friends,
and ghosts speaking audibly in a foreign language
of which the medium is ignorant their equanimity
is not disturbed. . . . The credulity of some scien-
tific men, too, is boundless they would rather believe
that a baby could lift a mountain without levers,
than that a spirit could lift an ounce."

But apart from the extreme sceptic, whom nothing
will convince and who would label the Angel Gabriel
at the last day as an optical delusion, there are some
very natural objections which an honest novice is
bound to make, and an honest believer to answer.
What about these costumes ? Whence come they ?
Can we accept a nine-foot lance as being a spiritual
object ? The answer lies, so far as we understand it,
in the amazing properties of ectoplasm. It is the most
protean substance, capable of being moulded instantly
into any shape, and the moulding power is spirit will,
either in or out of the body. Anything may in an
instant be fashioned from it if the predominating intel-
ligence so decides. At all such stances there appears
to be present one controlling spiritual being who
marshals the figures and arranges the whole pro-
gramme. Sometimes he speaks and openly directs.
Sometimes he is silent and manifests only by his
actions. As already stated, such controls are very
often Red Indians who appear in their spiritual
life to have some special affinity with physical
phenomena.

William Eddy, the chief medium for these pheno-
mena, does not appear to have suffered in health or
266

THE EDDY BROTHERS

strength from that which is usually a most exhausting
process. Crookes has testified how Home would " lie
in an almost fainting condition on the floor, pale and
speechless." Home, however, was not a rude open-
air farmer, but a sensitive artistic invalid. Eddy seems
to have eaten little, but smoked incessantly. Music
and singing were employed at the stances, for it has
long been observed that there is a close connexion
between musical vibrations and psychic results. White
light also has been found to prohibit results, and this
is now explained from the devastating effects which
light has been shown to exert upon ectoplasm. Many
colours have been tried in order to prevent total dark-
ness, but if you can trust your medium the latter is
the most conducive to results, especially to those
results of phosphorescent and flashing lights which are
among the most beautiful of the phenomena. If a
light is used, red is the colour which is best tolerated.
In the Eddy stances there was a subdued illumination
from a shaded lamp.

It would be wearisome to the reader to enter into
details as to the various types which appeared in these
remarkable gatherings. Madame Blavatsky, who was
then an unknown woman in New York, had come up
to see the sights. At that time she had not yet
developed the theosophical line of thought, and was
an ardent Spiritualist. Colonel Olcott and she met
for the first time in the Vermont farm-house, and there
began a friendship which was destined in the future
to lead to strange developments. In her honour
apparently a whole train of Russian images appeared,
267

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

who carried on conversations in that language with the
lady. The chief apparitions, however, were a giant
Indian named Santum and an Indian squaw named
Honto, who materialized so completely and so often
that the audience may well have been excused if they
forgot sometimes that they were dealing with spirits
at all. So close was the contact that Olcott measured
Honto on a painted scale beside the cabinet door. She
was five feet three. On one occasion she exposed her
woman's breast and asked a lady present to feel the
beating of her heart. Honto was a light-hearted
person, fond of dancing, of singing, of smoking, and
of exhibiting her wealth of dark hair to the audience.
Santum, on the other hand, was a taciturn warrior,
six feet three in height. The height of the medium
was five feet nine.

It is worth noting that the Indian always wore a
powder-horn, which had been actually given him by
a visitor to the circle. This was hung up in the cabinet
and was donned by him when he materialized. Some
of the Eddy spirits could speak and others could not,
while the amount of fluency varied greatly. This was
in accordance with the author's experience at similar
stances. It seems that the returning soul has much
to learn when it handles this simulacrum of itself, and
that here, as elsewhere, practice goes for much. In
speaking, these figures move their lips exactly as
human beings would do. It has been shown also that
their breath in lime water produces the characteristic
reaction of carbon dioxide. Olcott says : " The spirits
themselves say that they have to learn the art of self-

THE EDDY BROTHERS

materialization, as one would any other art." At first
they could only make tangible hands as in the cases of
the Davenports, the Foxes, and others. Many
mediums never get beyond this stage.

Among the numerous visitors to the Vermont
homestead there were naturally some who took up a
hostile attitude. None of these, however, seems to
have gone into the matter with any thoroughness.
The one who attracted most attention was a Dr.
Beard, of New York, a medical man, who on the
strength of a single sitting contended that the figures
were all impersonations by William Eddy himself.
No evidence, and only his own individual impression
is put forward to sustain this view, and he declared
that he could produce all the effects with " three
dollars' worth of theatrical properties." Such an
opinion might well be honestly formed upon a single
performance, especially if it should have been a more
or less unsuccessful one. But it becomes perfectly
untenable when it is compared with the experiences
of those who attended a number of sittings. Thus,
Dr. Hodgson, of Stoneham, Mass., together with four
other witnesses, signed a document: "We certify
. . . that Santum was out on the platform when
another Indian of almost as great a stature came out,
and the two passed and re-passed each other as they
walked up and down. At the same time a conversa-
tion was being carried on between George Dix, May-
flower, old Mr. Morse, and Mrs. Eaton inside the
cabinet. We recognized the familiar voice of each."
There are many such testimonies, apart from Olcott,
269

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

and they put the theory of impersonation quite out of
court. It should be added that many of the forms
were little children and babies in arms. Olcott
measured one child two feet four in height. It
should, in fairness, be added that the one thing which
clouds the reader occasionally is Olcott's own hesita-
tion and reservations. He was new to the subject, and
every now and then a wave of fear and doubt would
pass over his mind, and he would feel that he had com-
mitted himself too far and that he must hedge in case,
in some inexplicable way, he should be shown to be
in the wrong. Thus, he says: " The forms I saw at
Chittenden, while apparently defying any other ex-
planation than that they are of super-sensual origin,
are still as a scientific fact to be regarded as * not
proven. 5 " Elsewhere he talks about not having
" test conditions."

This expression " test conditions " has become a
sort of shibboleth which loses all meaning. Thus,
when you say that you have beyond all question or
doubt seen your own dead mother's face before you,
the objector replies: " Ah, but was it under test con-
ditions ? " The test lies in the phenomenon itself.
When one considers that Olcott was permitted for ten
weeks to examine the little wooden enclosure which
served as cabinet, to occlude the window, to search
the medium, to measure and to weigh the ectoplasmic
forms, one wonders what else he would demand in
order to make assurance complete. The fact is, that
while Olcott was writing his account there came the
alleged exposure of Mrs. Holmes, and the partial

THE EDDY BROTHERS

recantation of Mr. Dale Owen, and that this caused
him to take these precautions.

It was William Eddy whose mediumship took the
form of materializations. Horatio Eddy gave stances
of quite a different character. In his case a sort of cloth
screen was fixed up, in front of which he used to sit
in good light with one of his audience beside him hold-
ing his hand. Behind the screen was placed a guitar
and other instruments, which presently began to play,
apparently of their own accord, while materialized
hands showed themselves over the edge of the screen.
The general effect of the performance was much the
same as that of the Davenport brothers, but it was
more impressive, inasmuch as the medium was in full
view, and was under control by a spectator. The
hypothesis of modern psychic science, founded upon
many experiments, especially those of Dr. Crawford,
of Belfast, is that invisible bands of ectoplasm, which
are rather conductors of force than forcible in them-
selves, are evolved from the body of the medium and
connect up with the object to be manipulated, where
they are used to raise it, or to play it, as the unseen
power may desire that unseen power being, according
to the present views of Professor Charles Richet, some
extension of the personality of the medium, and
according to the more advanced school some inde-
pendent entity. Of this nothing was known at the
time of the Eddys, and the phenomena presented the
questionable appearance of a whole series of effects
without any cause. As to the reality of the fact, it is
impossible to read Olcott's very detailed description

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

without being convinced that there could be no error
in that. This movement of objects at a distance from
the medium, or Telekinesis, to use the modern phrase,
is now a rare phenomenon in light, but on one occa-
sion at an amateur circle of experienced Spiritualists
the author has seen a large platter-shaped circle of
wood in the full light of a candle, rising up on edge
and flapping code answers to questions when no one
was within six feet of it.

In Horatio Eddy's dark stances, where the com-
plete absence of light gave the psychic power full
scope, Olcott has testified that there were mad Indian
war dances with the thudding of a dozen feet, and the
wild playing of every instrument simultaneously,
accompanied by yells and whoops. " As an ex-
hibition of pure brute force," he says, " this Indian
dance is probably unsurpassed in the annals of such
manifestations." A light turned on would find all
the instruments littered about the floor, and Horatio
in^ a deep slumber, without a trace of perspiration,
lying unconscious in his chair. Olcott assures us that
he and other gentlemen present, whose names he gives,
were permitted to sit on the medium, but that within
a minute or two all the instruments were playing once
again. After such an experiment all further experi-
encesand there were very many seem to be
beside the point. Short of wholesale and senseless
lying on the part of Olcott and the other spectators,
there can be no doubt that Horatio Eddy was exer-
cising powers of which science was, and still is, very
imperfectly acquainted.

THE EDDY BROTHERS

Some of Olcott's experiments were so definite, and
are narrated so frankly and so clearly, that they deserve
respectful consideration, and antedate the work of
many of our modern researchers. For example, he
brought from New York a balance which was duly
tested as correct with a published certificate to that
effect. He then persuaded one of the forms, the
squaw Honto, to stand upon it, the actual weights
being recorded by a third person, Mr. Pritchard, who
was a reputable citizen and disinterested in the matter.
Olcott gives his account of the results, and adds the
certificate of Pritchard as sworn to before a magis-
trate. Honto was weighed four times, standing upon
the platform so that she could not ease her weight in
any way. She was a woman five feet three in height,
and might be expected to register about 135 Ib.
The four results were actually 88, 58, 58, and 65
Ib., all on the same evening. This seems to show
that her body was a mere simulacrum which could
vary in density from minute to minute. It showed
also what was clearly brought out afterwards by Craw-
ford, that the whole weight of the simulacrum cannot
be derived from the medium. It is inconceivable that
Eddy, who weighed 179 Ib., was able to give up
88 of them. The whole circle, according to their
capacity, which varies greatly, are called upon to con-
tribute, and other elements may in all probability be
drawn from the atmosphere. The highest actual loss
of weight ever shown by Miss Goligher in the Craw-
ford experiments was 52 Ib., but each member of
the circle was shown by the dials on the weighing

s 273

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

chairs to have contributed some substance to the
building of the ectoplasmic formations.

Colonel Olcott also prepared two spring balances
and tested the pulling power of the spirit hands, while
those of the medium were held by one of the audience.
A left hand pulled with a force of forty lb., and
the right hand with fifty in a light which was so good
that Olcott could clearly see that the right hand was
one finger short. He was already familiar with the
assertion of the spirit in question that he had been a
sailor and had lost a finger in his lifetime. When one
reads of such things the complaint of Olcott that his
results were not final, and that he had not perfect test
conditions, becomes more and more hard to compre-
hend. He winds up his conclusions, however, with
the words: " No matter how many sceptics came
battering against these granitic facts, no matter what
array of * exposers ' might blow their tin horns and
penny trumpets, that Jericho would stand."

One observation which Olcott made was that these
ectoplasmic forms were quick to obey any mental
order from a strong-minded sitter, coming and
going as they were willed to do. Other observers in
various stances have noted the same fact, and it may
be taken as one of the fixed points in this baffling
problem.

There is one other curious point which probably
escaped Olcott's notice. The mediums and the spirits
who had been fairly amiable to him during his long
visit turned suddenly very acid and repellent. This
change seems to have occurred just after the arrival

THE EDDY BROTHERS

of Madame Blavatsky, with whom Olcott had struck
up a close comradeship. Madame was, as stated, an
ardent Spiritualist at the time, but it is at least possible
that the spirits may have had foresight, and that they
sensed danger from this Russian lady. Her theoso-
phical teachings which were put forward in a year or
two were to take the shape that, although the pheno-
mena were real, the spirits were empty astral shells,
and had no true life of their own. Whatever the true
explanation, the change in the spirits was remarkable.
" So far from the importance of my labour being
recognized and all reasonable facilities afforded, I was
kept constantly at a distance, as though I were an
enemy instead of an unprejudiced observer."

Colonel Olcott narrates many cases where the
sitters have recognized spirits, but too much stress
should not be laid upon this, as with a dim light and
an emotional condition it is easy for an honest observer
to be mistaken. The author has had the opportunity
of gazing into the faces of at least a hundred of these
images, and he can only recall two cases in which he
was absolutely certain in his recognition. In both
these cases the faces were self-illuminated, and he had
not to depend upon the red lamp. There were two
other occasions when, with the red lamp, he was
morally certain, but in the vast majority of cases it
was possible, if one allowed one's imagination to work,
to read anything into the vague moulds which rose
before one. It is likely that this occurred in the Eddy
circle indeed, C. C. Massey, a very competent judge,
sitting with the Eddys in 1875, complained of the

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

fact. The real miracle consisted not in the recognition
but in the presence of the figure at all.

There can be no doubt that the interest aroused by
the Press accounts of the Eddy phenomena might have
caused a more serious treatment of psychic science, and
possibly advanced the cause of truth by a generation.
Unhappily, at the very moment when the public
attention was strongly drawn to the subject there came
the real or imaginary scandal of the Holmeses at
Philadelphia, which was vigorously exploited by the
materialists, helped by the exaggerated honesty of
Robert Dale Owen. The facts were as follows:

Two mediums in Philadelphia, Mr. and Mrs.
Nelson Holmes, had given a series of stances at which
an alleged spirit had continually appeared, which took
the name of Katie King, and professed to be the same
as that with which Professor Crookes had experimented
in London. On the face of it the assertion seemed
most doubtful since the original Katie King had
clearly stated that her mission was ended. However,
apart from the identity of the spirit, there seemed to be
good evidence that the phenomenon was genuine and
not fraudulent, for it was most fully endorsed by Mr.
Dale Owen, General Lippitt, and a number of other
observers, who quoted personal experiences which
were entirely beyond the reach of imposture.

There was in Philadelphia at the time a Dr. Child,
who plays a very ambiguous part in the obscure events
which followed. Child had vouched for the genuine
character of these phenomena in the most pronounced
way. He had gone so far as to state in a pamphlet
276

THE HOLMESES

published in 1874 that the same John and Katie King,
whom he had seen in the stance room, had come to
him in his own private offices and had there dictated
particulars of their earth life which he duly published.
Such a statement must raise grave doubts in the mind
of any psychic student, for a spirit form can only
manifest from a medium, and there is no indication
that Child was one. In any case one would imagine
that, after such an assertion, Child was the last man in
the world who could declare that the stances were
fraudulent.

Great public interest had been aroused in the
stances by an article by General Lippitt in the
Galaxy of December, 1874, and another by Dale
Owen in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1875.
Then suddenly came the crash. It was heralded by
a notice from Dale Owen, dated January 5, to the
effect that evidence had been laid before him which
compelled him to withdraw his previous expressions of
confidence in the Holmeses. A similar card was
issued by Dr. Child. Writing to Olcott, who after his
Eddy investigation was recognized as an authority,
Dale Owen said: " I believe they have been latterly
playing us false, which may be only supplementing the
genuine with the spurious, but it does cast a doubt on
last summer's manifestations, so that I shall probably
not use them in my next book on Spiritualism. It is a
loss, but you and Mr. Crookes have amply made it up.'*

Dale Owen's position is clear enough, since he was
a man of sensitive honour, who was horrified at the
idea that he could for one instant have certified an

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

imposture to be a truth. His error seems to have lain
in acting upon the first breath of suspicion instead of
waiting until the facts were clear. Dr. Child's
position is, however, more questionable, for if the
manifestations were indeed fraudulent, how could
he possibly have had interviews with the same spirits
alone in his own private room ?

It was asserted now that a woman, whose name was
not given, had been impersonating Katie King at
these stances, that she had allowed her photograph to
be taken and sold as Katie King, that she could pro-
duce the robes and ornaments worn by Katie King at
the stances, and that she was prepared to make a full
confession. Nothing could appear to be more damn-
ing and more complete. It was at this point that
Olcott took up the investigation, and he seems to have
been quite prepared to find that the general verdict
was correct.

His investigation soon revealed some facts, how-
ever, which threw fresh lights upon the matter and
proved that psychic research in order to be accurate
should examine " exposures " with the same critical
care that it does phenomena. The name of the person
who confessed that she had personated Katie King was
revealed as Eliza White. In an account of the matter
which she published, without giving the name, she
declared that she had been born in 1 85 r, which would
make her twenty-three years of age. She had married
at fifteen and had one child eight years old. Her
husband had died in 1872, and she had to keep her-
self and child. The Holmeses had come to lodge with

THE HOLMESES

her in March, 1874. In May they engaged her to
personate a spirit. The cabinet had a false panel at
the back through which she could slip, clad in a
muslin robe. Mr. Dale Owen was invited to the
stances and was completely taken in. All this caused
violent twinges of her own conscience which did not
prevent her from going to greater lengths and learn-
ing to fade away or re-form by the help of black cloths,
and finally, of being photographed as Katie King.

One day, according to her account, there came to
her performance a man named Leslie, a railroad con-
tractor. This gentleman showed his suspicions, and
at a subsequent interview taxed her with her deceit,
offering her pecuniary aid if she would confess to it.
This she accepted, and then showed Leslie the methods
of her impersonation. On December 5, a mock
stance was held at which she rehearsed her part as
played in the real stances, and this so impressed Dale
Owen and also Dr. Child, both of whom were present,
that they issued the notices in which they recanted
their former belief a recantation which was a stagger-
ing blow to those who had accepted Dale Owen's pre-
vious assurances, and who now claimed that he should
have made some thorough investigation before issuing
such a document. It was the more painful as Dale
Owen was seventy-three years of age, and had been
one of the most eloquent and painstaking of all the
disciples of the new dispensation.

Olcott's first task was to sift the record already
given, and to get past the anonymity of the authoress.
He soon discovered that she was, as already stated, Mrs.

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

Eliza White, and that, though in Philadelphia, she
refused to see him. The Holmeses, on the other hand,
acted in a very open manner towards him and offered
him every facility for examining their phenomena
with such reasonable test conditions as he might desire.
An examination of the past life of Eliza White showed
that her statement, so far as it concerned her own story,
was a tissue of lies. She was very much older than
stated not less than thirty-five and it was doubtful
whether she had ever been married to White at all.
For years she had been a vocalist in a travelling show.
White wa^still alive, so there was no question of widow-
hood. Olcott published the certificate of the Chief
of the Police to that effect.

Among other documents put forward by Colonel
Olcott was one from a Mr. Allen, Justice of the Peace
of New Jersey, given under oath. Eliza White, accord-
ing to this witness, was " so untruthful that those to
whom she spoke never knew when to believe her, and
her moral reputation was as bad as bad could be."
Judge Allen was able, however, to give some testimony
which bore more directly upon the matter under dis-
cussion. He deposed that he had visited the Holmeses
in Philadelphia, and had assisted Dr. Child to put up
the cabinet, that it was solidly constructed, and that
there was no possibility of any entrance being effected
from behind, as alleged by Mrs. White. Further,
that he was at a stance at which Katie King appeared,
and that the proceedings had been disturbed by the
singing of Mrs. White in another room, so that it was
quite impossible that Mrs. White could, as she claimed,

THE 'HOLMESES

have acted an impersonation of the spirit. This being
a sworn deposition by a Justice of the Peace would
seem to be a weighty piece of evidence.

This cabinet seems to have been made in June, for
General Lippitt, an excellent witness, described quite
another arrangement on the occasion when he experi-
mented. He says that two doors folded backwards,
so as to touch each other, and the cabinet was simply
the recess between these doors with a board over the
top. " The first two or three evenings I made a care-
ful examination, and once with a professional magician,
who was perfectly satisfied that there was no chance
of any trick." This was in May, so the two descrip-
tions are not contradictory, save to Eliza White's claim
that she could pass into the cabinet.

In addition to these reasons for caution in forming
an opinion, the Holmeses were able to produce letters
written to them from Mrs. White in August, 1874,
which were quite incompatible with there being any
guilty secret between them. On the other hand, one
of these letters did relate that efforts had been made to
bribe her into a confession that she had been Katie
King. Later in the year Mrs. White seems to have
assumed a more threatening tone, as is sworn by the
Holmeses in a formal affidavit, when she declared that
unless they paid a rent which she claimed, there were
a number of gentlemen of wealth, including members
of the Young Men's Christian Association, who were
ready to pay her a large sum of money, and she need
not trouble the Holmeses any more. A thousand
dollars was the exact sum which Eliza White was to get

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

if she would consent to admit that she impersonated
Katie King. It must surely be conceded that this
statement, taken in conjunction with the woman's
record, makes it very essential to demand corrobora-
tion for every assertion she might make.

One culminating fact remains. At the very hour
that the bogus stance was being held at which Mrs.
White was snowing how Katie King was impersonated,
the Holmeses held a real stance, attended by twenty
people, at which the spirit appeared the same as ever.
Colonel Olcott collected several affidavits from those
who were present on this occasion, and there can be
no doubt about the fact. That of Dr. Adolphus
Fellger is short, and may be given almost in full.
He says under oath that "he has seen the spirit
known as Katie King in all perhaps eighty times, is
perfectly familiar with her features, and cannot mis-
take as to the identity of the Katie King who appeared
upon the evening of December 5, for while the said
spirit scarcely ever appeared of exactly the same height
or features two evenings in succession, her voice
was always the same, and the expression of her eyes,
and the topics of her conversation enabled him to
be still more certain of her being the same person."
This Fellger was a well-known and highly respected
Philadelphia physician, whose simple word, says
Olcott, would outweigh " a score of affidavits of your
Eliza Whites."

It was also clearly shown that Katie King appeared
constantly when Mrs. Holmes was at Blissfield and
Mrs. White was in Philadelphia, and that Mrs. Holmes

THE HOLMESES

had written to Mrs. White describing their successful
appearances, which seems a final proof that the latter
was not a confederate.

By this time one must admit that Mrs. White's
anonymous confession is shot through and through
with so many holes that it is in a sinking condition.
But there is one part which, it seems to the author, will
still float. That is the question of the photograph.
It was asserted by the Holmeses in an interview with
General Lippitt whose word is a solid patch in this
general quagmire- that Eliza White was hired by Dr.
Child to pose in a photograph as Katie King. Child
seems to have played a dubious part all through this
business, making affirmations at different times which
were quite contradictory, and having apparently some
pecuniary interest in the matter. One is inclined,
therefore, to look seriously into this charge, and to be-
lieve that the Holmeses may have been party to the
fraud. Granting that the Katie King image was real,
they may well have doubted whether it could be
photographed, since dim light was necessary for its
production. On the other hand, there was clearly a
source of revenue if photographs at half a dollar each
could be sold to the numerous sitters. Colonel Olcott
in his book produces a photograph of Mrs. White
alongside of the one which was supposed to be Katie
King, and claims that there is no resemblance. It is
clear, however, that the photographer would be asked
to touch up the negative so as to conceal the resem-
blance, otherwise the fraud would be obvious. The
author has the impression, though not the certainty,
283

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

that the two faces are the same with just such changes
as manipulation would produce. Therefore he thinks
that the photograph may well be a fraud, but that this
by no means corroborates the rest of Mrs. White's
narrative, though it would shake our faith in the
character of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes as well as of Dr.
Child. But the character of physical mediums has
really only an indirect bearing upon the question of
the reality of their psychic powers, which should be
tested upon their own merits whether the individual
be saint or sinner.

Colonel Olcott's wise conclusion was that, as the
evidence was so conflicting, he would put it all to
one side and test the mediums in his own way with-
out reference to what was past. This he did in a
very convincing way, and it is impossible for anyone
who reads his investigation (" People From the
Other World," p. 460 and onwards) to deny that
he took every possible precaution against fraud.
The cabinet was netted at the sides so that no one
could enter as Mrs. White claimed to have done.
Mrs. Holmes was herself put into a bag which
tied round the neck and, as her husband was away,
she was confined to her own resources. Under
these circumstances numerous heads were formed,
some of which were semi-materialized, presenting a
somewhat terrible appearance. This may have been
done as a test, or it may have been that the long
contention had impaired the powers of the medium.
The faces were made to appear at a level which the
medium could in no case have reached. Dale Owen

THE HOLMESES

was present at this demonstration and must have
already begun to regret his premature declaration.

Further stances with similar results were then held
in Olcott's own rooms, so as to preclude the possi-
bility of some ingenious mechanism under the control
of the medium. On one occasion, when the head of
John King, the presiding spirit, appeared in the air,
Olcott, remembering Eliza White's assertion that these
faces were merely ten cent masks, asked and obtained
permission to pass his stick all round it, and so satisfied
himself that it was not supported. This experiment
seems so final that the reader who desires even more
evidence may be referred to the book where he will
find much. It was perfectly clear that whatever part
Eliza White may have played in the photograph, there
was not a shadow of a doubt that Mrs. Holmes was a
genuine and powerful medium for material pheno-
mena. It should be added that the Katie King head
was repeatedly seen by the investigators, though the
whole form appears only once to have been material-
ized. General Lippitt was present at these experi-
ments and associated himself publicly (Banner of Light,
February 6, 1875) w ^ Olcott's conclusions.

The author has dwelt at some length upon this
case, as it is very typical of the way in which the public
has been misled over Spiritualism. The papers are
full of an " exposure." It is investigated and is shown
to be either quite false or very partially true. This is
not reported, and the public is left with the original
impression uncorrected. Even now, when one men-
tions Katie King, one hears some critic say: " Oh,

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

she was shown to be a fraud in Philadelphia," and by
a natural confusion of thought this has even been
brought as an argument against Crookes's classical
experiments. The affairespecially the temporary
weakening of Dale Owen set the cause of Spiritual-
ism back by many years in America.

Mention has been made of John King, the pre-
siding spirit at the Holmes stances. This strange
entity would appear to have been the chief controller
of all physical phenomena in the early days of the
movement, and is still occasionally to be seen and
heard. His name is associated with the Koons's
music saloon, with the Davenport brothers, with
Williams in London, with Mrs. Holmes, and many
others. In person when materialized he presents the
appearance of a tall, swarthy man with a noble head
and a full black beard. His voice is loud and deep,
while his rap has a decisive character of its own. He
is master of all languages, having been tested in the
most out-of-the-way tongues, such as Georgian, and
never having been found wanting. This formidable
person controls the bands of lesser primitive spirits,
Red Indians and others, who assist at such phenomena,
He claims that Katie King is his daughter, and that
he was himself when in life Henry Morgan, the buc-
caneer who was pardoned and knighted by Charles II
and ended as Governor of Jamaica. If so, he has
been a most cruel ruffian and has much to expiate.
The author is bound to state, however, that he has in
his possession a contemporary picture of Henry Mor-
gan (it will be found in Howard Pyle's " Buccaneers,"

THE HOLMESES

p. 178), and that if reliable it has no resemblance to
John King. All these questions of earthly identity
are very obscure.

Before closing the account of Olcott's experiences
at this stage of his evolution, some notice should be
taken of the so-called Compton transfiguration case,
which shows what deep waters we are in when we
attempt psychic research. These particular waters
have not been plumbed yet, nor in any way charted.
Nothing can be clearer than the facts, or more satis-
factory than the evidence. The medium Mrs. Comp-
ton was shut up in her small cabinet, and thread
passed through the bored holes in her ears and
fastened to the back of her chair. Presently a slim
white figure emerged from the cabinet. Olcott had a
weighing platform provided, and on it the spirit
figure stood. Twice it was weighed, the records being
77 Ib. and 59 Ib. Olcott then, as prearranged, went
into the cabinet leaving the figure outside. The
medium was gone. The chair was there, but there was
no sign of the woman. Olcott then turned back and
again weighed the apparition, who this time scaled
52 Ib. The spirit then returned into the cabinet from
which other figures emerged. Finally, Olcott says :

I went inside with a lamp and found the medium just
as I left her at the beginning of the seance, with every

* As the author has given a point against the identity of John King with
Morgan, it is only fair that he should give one which supports it and comes to
him almost first-hand from a reliable source. The daughter of a recent
Governor of Jamaica was at a stance in London lately, and was confronted
with John King. The King spirit said to her, " You have brought back from
Jamaica something which was mine." She said, " What was it ? " He an-
swered, " My will." It was a fact, quite unknown to the company, that her
father had brought back this document.
287

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

thread unbroken and every seal undisturbed ! She sat
there, with her head leaning against the wall, her flesh as
pale and as cold as marble, her eyeballs turned up beneath
the lids, her forehead covered with a death-like damp,
no breath coming from her lungs and no pulse at her wrist.
When every person had examined the threads and seals,
I cut the flimsy bonds'with a pair of scissors, and, lifting the
chair by its back and seat, carried the cataleptic woman out
into the open air of the chamber.

She lay thus inanimate for eighteen minutes ; life gradu-
ally coming back to her body, until respiration and pulse
and the temperature of her skin became normal ... I
then put her upon the scale. . . . She weighed one hundred
and twenty-one pounds !

What are we to make of such a result as that ?
There were eleven witnesses besides Olcott himself.
The facts seem to be beyond dispute. But what are
we to deduce from such facts ? The author has seen
a photograph, taken in the presence of an amateur
medium, where every detail of the room has come out
but the sitter has vanished. Is the disappearance of
the medium in some way analogous to that ? If the
ectoplasmic figure weighed only 77 Ib. and the
medium 1 2 1 Ib., then it is clear that only 44 Ib. of her
were left when the phantom was out. If 44 Ib.
were not enough to continue the processes of life, may
not her guardians have used their subtle occult chem-
istry in order to dematerialize her and so save her from
all danger until the return of the phantom would
enable her to reassemble ? It is a strange supposition,
but it seems to meet the facts which cannot be done
by mere blank, unreasoning incredulity.

CHAPTER XIII
HENRY SLADE AND DR. MONCK

IT is impossible to record the many mediums of
various shades of power, and occasionally of
honesty, who have demonstrated the effects which
outside intelligences can produce when the material
conditions are such as to enable them to manifest upon
this plane. There are a few, however, who have
been so pre-eminent and so involved in public
polemics that no history of the movement can dis-
regard them, even if their careers have not been in all
ways above suspicion. We shall deal in this chapter
with the histories of Slade and Monck, both of whom
played a prominent part in their days.

Henry Slade, the celebrated slate-writing medium,
had been before the public in America for fifteen
years before he arrived in London on July 13, 1876.
Colonel H. S. Olcott, a former president of the
Theosophical Society, states that he and Madame
Blavatsky were responsible for Slade's visit to England.
It appears that the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia,
desiring to make a scientific investigation of Spiritual-
ism, a committee of professors of the Imperial Uni-
versity of St. Petersburg requested Colonel Olcott and
Madame Blavatsky to select out of the best American
mediums one whom they could recommend for tests

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

They chose Slade, after submitting him to exacting
tests for several weeks before a committee of sceptics,
who in their report certified that " messages were
written inside double slates, sometimes tied and sealed
together, while they either lay upon the table in full
view of all, or were laid upon the heads of members
of the committee, or held flat against the under sur-
face of the table-top, or held in a committeeman's
hand without the medium touching it." It was en
route to Russia that Slade came to England.

A representative of the London World, who had a
sitting with Slade soon after his arrival, thus describes
him: " A highly-wrought, nervous temperament, a
dreamy, mystical face, regular features, eyes luminous
with expression, a rather sad smile, and a certain
'melancholy grace of manner, were the impressions
conveyed by the tall, lithe figure introduced to me as
Dr. Slade. He is the sort of man you would pick out
of a roomful as an enthusiast." The Seybert Com-
mission Report says, " he is probably six feet in height,
with a figure of unusual symmetry," and that " his
face would attract notice anywhere for its un-
common beauty," and sums him up as " a noteworthy
man in every respect."

Directly after his arrival in London Slade began
to give sittings at his lodgings in 8 Upper Bedford
Place, Russell Square, and his success was immediate
and pronounced. Not only was writing obtained of
an evidential nature, under test conditions, with the
sitter's own slates, but the levitation of objects and
materialized hands were observed in strong sunlight.
290

HENRY SLADE

The editor of The Spiritual Magazine , the soberest and
most high-class of the Spiritualist periodicals of the
time, wrote: "We have no hesitation in saying that
Dr. Slade is the most remarkable medium of modern
times."

Mr. J. Enmore Jones, a well-known psychic re-
searcher of that day, who afterwards edited The
Spiritual Magazine, said that Slade was taking the
place vacated by D. D. Home. His account of his
first sitting indicates the business-like method of pro-
cedure: "In Mr. Home's case, he refused to take
fees, and as a rule the sittings were in the evening in
the quiet of domestic life; but in Dr. Slade's case it
was any time during the day, in one of the rooms he
occupies at a boarding-house. The fee of twenty
shillings is charged, and he prefers that only one per-
son be present in the large room he uses. No time
is lost; as soon as the visitor sits down the incidents
commence, are continued, and in, say, fifteen minutes
are ended." Stainton Moses, who was afterwards
the first president of the London Spiritualist Alliance,
conveys the same idea with regard to Slade. He
wrote : " In his presence phenomena occur with a
regularity and precision, with an absence of regard
for ' conditions,' and with a facility for observation
which satisfy my desires entirely. It is impossible to
conceive circumstances more favourable to minute
investigation than those under which I witnessed the
phenomena which occur in his presence with such
startling rapidity. . . . There was no hesitation, no
tentative experiments. All was short, sharp, and

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

decisive. The invisible operators knew exactly what
they were going to do, and did it with promptitude
and precision." *

Slade's first stance in England was given on
July 15, 1876, to Mr. Charles Blackburn, a promi-
nent Spiritualist, and Mr. W. H. Harrison, editor
of The Spiritualist. In strong sunlight the medium
and the two sitters occupied three sides of an ordinary
table about four feet square. A vacant chair was
placed at the fourth side. Slade put a tiny piece of
pencil, about the size of a grain of wheat, upon a
slate, and held the slate by one corner with one hand
under the table flat against the leaf. Writing was
heard on the slate, and on examination a short message
was found to have been written. While this was
taking place the four hands of the sitters and Slade's
disengaged hand were clasped in the centre of the
table. Mr. Blackburn's chair was moved four or five
inches while he was sitting upon it, and no one but
himself was touching it. The unoccupied chair at the
fourth side of the table once jumped in the air, striking
its seat against the under edge of the table. Twice
a life-like hand passed in front of Mr. Blackburn while
both Slade's hands were under observation. The
medium held an accordion under the table, and while
his other hand was in clear view on the table " Home,
Sweet Home " was played. Mr. Blackburn then held
the accordion in the same way, when the instrument
was drawn out strongly and one note sounded. While
this occurred Slade's hands were on the table. Finally,

* The Spiritualist, Vol. IX, p. 2.
292

HENRT SLADE

the three present raised their hands a foot above the
table, and it rose until it touched their hands. At
another sitting on the same day a chair rose about four
feet, when no one was touching it, and when Slade
rested one hand on the top of Miss Blackburn's chair,
she and the chair were raised about half a yard from
the floor.

Mr. Stainton Moses thus describes an early sitting
which he had with Slade:

A midday sun, hot enough to roast one, was pouring
into the room ; the table was uncovered ; the medium sat
with the whole of his body in full view ; there was no human
being present save myself and him. What conditions
could be better ? The raps were instantaneous and loud,
as if made by the clenched fist of a powerful man. The
slate-writing occurred under any suggested condition.
It came on a slate held by Dr. Slade and myself ; on one held
by myself alone in the corner of the table farthest from the
medium ; on a slate which I had myself brought with me,
and which I held myself. The latter writing occupied
some time in production, and the grating noise of the pencil
in forming each word was distinctly audible. A chair
opposite to me was raised some eighteen inches from the
floor ; my slate was taken out of my hand, and produced
at the opposite side of the table, where neither Dr. Slade
nor I could reach it ; the accordion played all round and
about me, while the doctor held it by the lower part, and
finally, on a touch from his hand upon the back of my chair,
I was levitated, chair and all, some inches.

Mr. Stainton Moses was himself a powerful
medium, and this fact doubtless aided the conditions.
He adds:

I have seen all these phenomena and many others
293

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

several times before, but I never saw them occur rapidly
and consecutively in broad daylight. The whole stance
did not extend over more than half an hour, and no cessa-
tion of the phenomena occurred from first to last. *

All went well for six weeks, and London was full
of curiosity as to the powers of Slade, when there came
an awkward interruption.

Early in September, 1876, Professor Ray Lan-
kester with Dr. Donkin had two sittings with Slade;
and on the second occasion, seizing the slate, he found
writing on it when none was supposed to have taken
place. He was entirely without experience in psychic
research, or he would have known that it is impossible
to say at what moment writing occurs in such stances.
Occasionally a whole sheet of writing seems to be pre-
cipitated in an instant, while at other times the author
has clearly heard the pencil scratching along from line
to line. To Ray Lankester, however, it seemed a
clear case of fraud, and he wrote a letter to The Times-\
denouncing Slade, and also prosecuted him for obtain-
ing money under false pretences. Replies to Lankes-
ter's letter and supporting Slade were forthcoming
from Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, Professor Barrett,
and others. Dr. Wallace pointed out that Professor
Lankester's account of what happened was so com-
pletely unlike what occurred during his own visit to
the medium, as well as the recorded experience of
Serjeant Cox, Dr. Carter Blake, and many others, that
he could only look upon it as a striking example of
Dr. Carpenter's theory of preconceived ideas. He

* The Spiritualist, Vol. IX, p. 2. f September, 16, 1876.

294

HENRT SLADE

says: " Professor Lankester went with the firm con-
viction that all he was going to see would be imposture,
and he believes he saw imposture accordingly." Pro-
fessor Lankester showed his bias when, referring to
the paper read before the British Association on
September 1 2 by Professor Barrett, in which he dealt
with Spiritualistic phenomena, he said, in his letter to
The Times : " The discussions of the British Associa-
tion have been degraded by the introduction of
Spiritualism."

Professor Barrett wrote that Slade had a ready
reply, based on his ignorance of when the writing did
actually occur. He describes a very evidential sitting
he had in which the slate rested on the table with his
elbow resting on it. One of Slade's hands was held
by him, and the fingers of the medium's other hand
rested lightly on the surface of the slate. In this way
writing occurred on the under surface of the slate.
Professor Barrett further speaks of an eminent scien-
tific friend who obtained writing on a clean slate when
it was held entirely by him, both of the medium's
hands being on the table. Such instances must surely
seem absolutely conclusive to the unbiased reader, and
it will be clear that if the positive is firmly established,
occasional allegations of negative have no bearing upon
the general conclusion.

Slade's trial came on at Bow Street Police Court on
October i, 1876, before Mr. Flowers, the magistrate.
Mr. George Lewis prosecuted and Mr. Munton
appeared for the defence. Evidence in favour of the
genuineness of Slade's mediumship was given by

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, Serjeant Cox, Dr. George
Wyld, and one other, only four witnesses being >
allowed. The magistrate described the testimony as
" overwhelming " as to the evidence for the pheno-
mena, but in giving judgment he excluded everything
but the 'evidence of Lankester and his friend Dr.
Donkin, saying that he must base his decision on
" inferences to be drawn from the known course of
nature." A statement made by Mr. Maskelyne, the
well-known conjurer, that the table used by Slade was
a trick-table was disproved by the evidence of the
workman who made it. This table can now be seen
at the offices of the London Spiritualist Alliance, and
one marvels at the audacity of a witness who could
imperil another man's liberty by so false a statement,
which must have powerfully affected the course of the
trial. Indeed, in the face of the evidence of Ray
Lankester, Donkin, and Maskelyne, it is hard to see
how Mr. Flowers could fail to convict, for he would
say with truth and reason, " What is before the Court
is not what has happened upon other occasions how-
ever convincing these eminent witnesses may be but
what occurred upon this particular occasion, and here
we have two witnesses on one side and only the
prisoner on the other." The " trick-table " probably
settled the matter.

Slade was sentenced, under the Vagrancy Act, to
three months' imprisonment with hard labour. An
appeal was lodged and he was released on bail. When
the appeal came to be heard, the conviction was
quashed on a technical point. It may be pointed out

HENRY SLADE

that though he escaped on a technical point, namely,
that the words " by palmistry or otherwise " which
appeared in the statute had been omitted, it must not
be assumed that had the technical point failed he
might not have escaped on the merits of his case.
Slade, whose health had been seriously affected by the
strain of the trial, left England for the Continent a
day or two later. From the Hague, after a rest of a
few months, Slade wrote to Professor Lankester offer-
ing to return to London and to give him exhaustive
private tests on condition that he could come without
molestation. He received no answer to his suggestion,
which surely is not that of a guilty man.

An illuminated testimonial to Slade from London
Spiritualists in 1877 sets out:

In view of the deplorable termination of Henry Slade's
visit to this country, we the undersigned desire to place on
record our high opinion of his mediumship, and our repro-
bation of the treatment he has undergone.

We regard Henry Slade as one of the most valuable
Test Mediums now living. The phenomena which occur
in his presence are evolved with a rapidity and regularity
rarely equalled. . . .

He leaves us not only untarnished in reputation by the
late proceedings in our Law Courts, but with a mass of
testimony in his favour which could probably have been
elicited in no other way.

This is signed by Mr. Alexander Calder (President
of the British National Association of Spiritualists) and
a number of representative Spiritualists. Unhappily,
however, it is the Noes, not the Ayes, which have the
ear of the Press, and even now, fifty years later, it
29?

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

would be hard to find a paper enlightened enough to
do the man justice.

Spiritualists, however, showed great energy in
supporting Slade. Before the trial a Defence Fund
was raised, and Spiritualists in America drew up a
memorial to the American Minister in London. Be-
tween the Bow Street conviction and the hearing of
the appeal, a memorial was sent to the Home Secretary
protesting against the action of the Government in
conducting the prosecution on appeal. Copies of this
were sent to all the members of the Legislature, to all
the Middlesex magistrates, to various members of the
Royal Society, and of other public bodies. Miss
Kislingbury, the secretary to the National Association
of Spiritualists, forwarded a copy to the Queen.

After giving successful stances at the Hague,
Slade went to Berlin in November, 1877, where he
created the keenest interest. He was said to know no
German, yet messages in German appeared on the
slates, and were written in the characters of the
fifteenth century. The Berliner Fremdenblatt of
November 10, 1877, wrote: "Since the arrival of
Mr. Slade at the Kronprinz Hotel the greater portion
of the educated world of Berlin has been suffering
from an epidemic which we may term a Spiritualistic
fever." Describing his experiences in Berlin, Slade
said that he began by fully converting the landlord of
the hotel, using the latter's slates and tables in his own
house. The landlord invited the Chief of Police and
many prominent citizens of Berlin to witness the mani-
festations, and they expressed themselves as satisfied.

HENRY SLADE

Slade writes: " Samuel Bellachini, Court Conjurer to
the Emperor of Germany, had a week's experience
with me free of charge. I gave him from two to
three seances a day and one of them at his own house.
After his full and complete investigation, he went to
a public notary and made oath that the phenomena
were genuine and not trickery."

Bellachini's declaration on oath, which has been
published, bears out this statement. He says that
after the minutest investigation he considers any
explanation by conjuring to be " absolutely impos-
sible." The conduct of conjurers seems to have been
usually determined by a sort of trade union jealousy,
as if the results of the medium were some sort of
breach of a monopoly, but this enlightened German,
together with Houdin, Kellar, and a few more, have
shown a more open mind.

A visit to Denmark followed, and in December
began the historic stances with Professor Zollner, at
Leipzig. A full account of these will be found in
Zollner's " Transcendental Physics," which has been
translated by Mr. C. C. Massey. Zollner was Pro-
fessor of Physics and Astronomy in the University of
Leipzig, and associated with him in the experiments
with Slade were other scientific men, including
William Edward Weber, Professor of Physics; Pro-
fessor Scheibner, a distinguished mathematician; Gus-
tave Theodore Fechner, Professor of Physics and an
eminent natural philosopher, who were all, says Pro-
fessor Zollner, " perfectly convinced of the reality of
the observed facts, altogether excluding imposture or

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

prestidigitation." The phenomena in question in-
cluded, among other things, " the production of true
knots in an endless string, the rending of Professor
Zollner's bed-screen, the disappearance of a small table
and its subsequent descent from the ceiling in full
light, in a private house and under the observed con-
ditions, of which the most noticeable is the apparent
passivity of Dr. Slade during all these occurrences."
Certain critics have tried to indicate what they
consider insufficient precautions observed in these
experiments. Dr. J. Maxwell, the acute French
critic, makes an excellent reply to such objections.
He points out* that because skilled and conscientious
psychic investigators have omitted to indicate ex-
plicitly in their reports that every hypothesis of fraud
has been studied and dismissed, in the belief that
" their implicit affirmation of the reality of the fact
appeared sufficient to them," and in order to prevent
their reports from being too unwieldy, yet captious
critics do not hesitate to condemn them and to suggest
possibilities of fraud which are quite inadmissible
under the observed conditions.

Zollner gave a dignified reply to the supposition
that he was tricked in these cord-tying experiments:
" If, nevertheless, the foundation of this fact, deduced
by me on the ground of an enlarged conception of
space, should be denied, only one other kind of
explanation would remain, arising from a moral code
of consideration that at present, it is true, is quite cus-
tomary. This explanation would consist in the pre-

* " Metapsychical Phenomena " (Translation, 1905), p. 405.
300

HENRT SLADE

sumption that I myself and the honourable men and
citizens of Leipzig, in whose presence several of these
cords were sealed, were either common impostors, or
were not in possession of our sound senses sufficient
to perceive if Mr. Slade himself, before the cords
were sealed, had tied them in knots. The discussion,
however, of such a hypothesis would no longer belong
to the dominion of science, but would fall under the
category of social decency."*

As a sample of the reckless statements of opponents
of Spiritualism, it may be mentioned that Mr. Joseph
McCabe, who is second only to the American Houdini
for wild inaccuracies, speaksf of Zollner as " an
elderly and purblind professor," whereas he died in
1882, in his forty-eighth year, and his experiments
with Slade were carried out in 1877-78, when this
distinguished scientist was in the vigour of his
intellectual life.

So far have opponents pushed their enmity that it
has even been stated that Zollner was deranged, and
that his death which occurred some years later was
accompanied with cerebral weakness. An inquiry
from Dr. Funk set this matter at rest, though it is
unfortunately easy to get libels of this sort into cir-
culation and very difficult to get the contradictions.
Here is the document : $

Your letter addressed to the Rector of the University,
October 20, 1903, received. The Rector of this Univer-
sity was installed here after the death of Zollner, and had

* Massey's Zollncr, pp. 20-21.

f " Spiritualism. A Popular History from 1847," p. 161.
j " The Widow's Mite," p. 276.
301

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

no personal acquaintance with him ; but information
received from Zollner's colleagues states that during his
entire studies at the University here, until his death, he
was of sound mind ; moreover, in the best of health. The
cause of his death was a haemorrhage of the brain on the
morning of April a^th, 1882, while he was at breakfast
with his mother, and from which he died shortly after.
It is true that Professor Zollner was an ardent believer
in Spiritualism, and as such was in close relations with
Slade.

(DR.) KARL BUCHER, Professor of Statistics
and National Economy at the University.

The tremendous power which occasionally mani-
fests itself when the conditions are favourable was
shown once in the presence of Zollner, Weber, and
Scheibner, all three professors of the University.
There was a strong wooden screen on one side of the
room:

A violent crack was suddenly heard as in the discharging
of a large battery of Leyden jars. On turning with some
alarm in the direction of the sound, the before-mentioned
screen fell apart in two pieces. The strong wooden screws,
half an inch thick, were torn from above and below, with-
out any visible contact of Slade with the screen. The parts
broken were at least five feet removed from Slade, who had
his back to the screen ; but even if he had intended to tear
it down by a cleverly devised sideward motion, it would have
been necessary to fasten it on the opposite side. As it
was, the screen stood quite unattached, and the grain of the
wood being parallel to the axis of the cylindrical wooden
fastenings, the wrenching asunder could only be accom-
plished by a force acting longitudinally to the part in ques-
tion. We were all astonished at this unexpected and violent
manifestation of mechanical force, and asked Slade what it
302

HENRY SLADE

all meant but he only shrugged his shoulders, saying that
such phenomena occasionally, though somewhat rarely,
occurred in his presence. As he spoke, he placed, while
still standing, a piece of slate-pencil on the polished surface
of the table, laid over it a slate, purchased and just cleaned
by myself, and pressed the five spread fingers of his right
hand on the upper surface of the slate, while his left hand
rested on the centre of the table. Writing began on the
inner surface of the slate, and when Slade turned it up,
the following sentence was written in English : " It
was not our intention to do harm. Forgive what has
happened." We were the more surprised at the production
of the writing under these circumstances, for we particularly
observed that both Slade's hands remained quite motionless
while the writing was going on.*

In his desperate attempt to explain this incident,
Mr. McCabe says that no doubt the screen was broken
before and fastened together afterwards with thread.
There is truly no limit to the credulity of the
incredulous.

After a very successful series of stances in St.
Petersburg, Slade returned to London for a few days
in 1878, and then proceeded to Australia. An inter-
esting account of his work there is to be found in Mr.
James Curtis's book, " Rustlings in the Golden City."
Then he returned to America. In 1885 he appeared
before the Seybert Commission in Philadelphia, and
in 1887 again visited England under the name of
" Dr. Wilson," though it was well known who he was.
Presumably his alias was due to a fear that the old
proceedings would be renewed.

* "Transcendental Physics," pp. 34, 35.
33

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

At most of his stances, Slade exhibited clairvoyant
powers, and materialized hands were a familiar occur-
rence. In Australia, where psychic conditions are
good, he had materializations. Mr. Curtis says that
the medium objected to sitting for this form of mani-
festation, because it left him weak for a time, and
because he preferred to give seances in the light. He
consented, however, to try with Mr. Curtis, who thus
describes what took place at Ballarat, in Victoria:

Our first test of spirit appearance in the form took place
at Lester's Hotel. I placed the table about four or five
feet from the west wall of the room. Mr. Slade sat at the
end of the table furthest from the wall, whilst I took my
position on the north side. The gaslight was toned down,
not so much but that any object in the room could be clearly
seen. Our hands were placed over one another in a single
pile. We sat very still about ten minutes, when I observed
something like a little misty cloud between myself and the
wall. When my attention was first drawn towards this
phenomenon, it was about the size and colour of a gentle-
man's high-crowned, whitish-grey felt hat. This cloud-
like appearance rapidly grew and became transformed,
when we saw before us a woman a lady. The being thus
fashioned, and all but perfected, rose from the floor on to
the top of the table, where I could most distinctly observe
the configuration. The arms and hands were elegantly
shaped ; the forehead, mouth, nose, cheeks, and beautiful
brown hair showed harmoniously, each part in concord with
the whole. Only the eyes were veiled because they could
not be completely materialized. The feet were encased in
white satin shoes. The dress glowed in light, and was the
most beautiful I ever beheld, the colour being bright, sheeny
silvery grey, or greyish shining white. The whole figure
was graceful, and the drapery perfect. The materialized
34

HENRY BLADE

spirit glided and walked about, causing the table to
shake, vibrate, jerk and tilt considerably. I could hear, too,
the rustling of the dress as the celestial visitant transiently
wended from one position or place to another. The spirit
form, within two feet of our unmoved hands, still piled up
together in a heap, then dissolved, and gradually faded
from our vision.

The conditions at this beautiful stance with the
medium's hands held throughout, and with enough
light for visibility seem satisfactory, provided we
grant the honesty of the witness. As the preface con-
tains the supporting testimony of a responsible Austra-
lian Government official, who also speaks of Mr.
Curtis's initial extremely sceptical state of mind, we
may well do so. At the same se'ance a quarter of an
hour later the figure again appeared :

The apparition then floated in the air and alighted on
the table, rapidly glided about, and thrice bent her beautiful
figure with graceful bows, each bending deliberate and low,
the head coming within six inches of my face. The
dress rustled (as silk rustles) with every movement. The
face was partially veiled as before. The visibility then
became invisible, slowly disappearing like the former
materialization.

Other similar stances are described.

In view of the many elaborate and stringent tests
through which he passed successfully, the story of
Slade's " exposure " in America in 1886 is not con-
vincing, but we refer to it for historical reasons, and
to show that such incidents are not excluded from our
review of the subject. The Boston Herald^ February 2,
1886, heads its account, " The celebrated Dr. Slade

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

comes to grief in Weston, W. Na., writes upon slates
which lie upon his knees under the table, and moves
tables and chairs with his toes." Observers in an
adjoining room, looking through the crevice under the
door saw these feats of agility being performed by the
medium, though those present in the room with him
were unaware of them. There seems, however, to
have been in this as in other cases, occurrences which
bore the appearance of fraud, and Spiritualists were
among those who denounced him. At a subsequent
public performance for " Direct Spirit Writing " in
the Justice Hall, Weston, Mr. E. S. Barrett, described
as a " Spiritualist," came forward and explained how
Slade's imposture had been detected. Slade, who was
asked to speak, appeared dumbfounded, and could
only say, according to the report, that if his accusers
had been deceived he had been equally so, for if the
deceit had been done by him, it had been without his
consciousness.

Mr. J. Simmons, Slade's business manager, made a
frank statement which seems to point to the operation
of ectoplasmic limbs, as years later was proved to be
the case with the famous Italian medium, Eusapia
Palladino. He says: " I do not doubt that these
gentlemen saw what they assert they did; but I am
convinced at the same time that Slade is as innocent
of what he is accused of as you (the editor) yourself
would have been under similar circumstances. But I
know that my explanation would have no weight in a
court of justice. I myself saw a hand, which I could
have sworn to be that of Slade, if it had been possible
306

HENRT SLADE

for his hand to be in that position. While one of his
hands lay upon the table and the other held the slate
under the corner of the table, a third hand appeared
with a clothes-brush (which a moment previously had
brushed against me from the knee upwards) in the
middle of the opposite edge of the table, which was
forty-two inches long." Slade and his manager were
arrested and released on bail, but no further proceed-
ings seem to have been taken against them. Trues-
dell, also, in his book, " Spiritualism, Bottom Facts,"
states that he saw Slade effecting the movement of
objects with his foot, and he asks his readers to believe
that the medium made to him a full confession of how
all his manifestations were produced. If Slade ever
really did this, it may probably be accounted for by
a burst of ill-timed levity on his part in seeking to fool
a certain type of investigator by giving him exactly
what he was seeking for. To such instances we may
apply the judgment of Professor Zollner on the
Lankester incident: " The physical facts observed by
us in so astonishing a variety in his presence negatived
on every reasonable ground the supposition that he in
one solitary case had taken refuge in wilful impos-
ture." He adds, what was certainly the case in that
particular instance, that Slade was the victim of his
accuser's and his judge's limited knowledge.

At the same time there is ample evidence that
Slade degenerated in general character towards the
latter part of his life. Promiscuous sittings with a
mercenary object, the subsequent exhaustions, and the
alcoholic stimulus which affords a temporary relief, all

TEE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

acting upon a most sensitive organization, had a dele-
terious effect. This weakening of character, with a
corresponding loss of health, may have led to a
diminution of his psychic powers, and increased the
temptation to resort to trickery. Making every allow-
ance for the difficulty of distinguishing what is fraud
and what is of crude psychic origin, an unpleasant
impression is left upon the mind by the evidence
given in the Seybert Commission and by the fact that
Spiritualists upon the spot should have condemned his
action. Human frailty, however, is one thing and
psychic power is another. Those who seek evidence
for the latter will find ample in those years when the
man and his powers were both at their zenith.

Slade died in 1905 at a Michigan sanatorium to
which he had been sent by the American Spiritualists,
and the announcement was followed by the customary
sort of comment in the London Press. The Star,
which has an evil tradition in psychic matters, printed
a sensational article headed " Spook Swindles," giving
a garbled account of the Lankester prosecution at Bow
Street. Referring to this, Light says : *

Of course, this whole thing is a hash of ignorance,
unfairness and prejudice. We do not care to discuss it
or to controvert it. It would be useless to do so for the
sake of the unfair, the ignorant, and the prejudiced, and it
is not necessary for those who know. Suffice it to say
that the Star only supplies one more instance of the diffi-
culty of getting all the facts before the public ; but the
prejudiced newspapers have themselves to blame for their
ignorance or inaccuracy.

DR. MONCK

It is the story of the Davenport Brothers and
Maskelyne over again.

If Slade's career is difficult to appraise, and if one
is forced to admit that while there was an overpower-
ing preponderance of psychic results, there was also
a residuum which left the unpleasant impression that
the medium might supplement truth with fraud, the
same admission must be made in the case of the
medium Monck, who played a considerable part for
some years in the 'seventies. Of all mediums none
is more difficult to appraise, for on the one hand many
of his results are beyond all dispute, while in a few
there seems to be an absolute certainty of dishonesty.
In his case, as in Slade's, there were physical causes
which would account for a degeneration of the moral
and psychic powers.

Monck was a Nonconformist clergyman, a favour-
ite pupil of the famous Spurgeon. According to his
own account, he had been subject from childhood to
psychic influences, which increased with his growth.
In 1873 he announced his adhesion to Spiritualism
and gave an address in the Cavendish Rooms. Shortly
afterwards he began to give demonstrations, which
appear to have been unpaid and were given in light.
In 1875 k e made a tour through England and Scot-
land, his performances exciting much attention and
debate, and in 1876 he visited Ireland, where his
powers were directed towards healing. Hence he was
usually known as " Dr." Monck, a fact which naturally
aroused some protest from the medical profession.
309

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, a most competent and
honest observer, has given an account of a material-
ization seance with Monck which appears to be as
critic-proof as such a thing could be. No subsequent
suspicion or conviction can ever eliminate such an in-
controvertible instance of psychic power. It is to be
noted how far the effects were in agreement with
the subsequent demonstrations of ectoplasmic out-
flow in the case of Eva and other modern mediums.
Dr. Wallace's companions upon this occasion were
Mr. Stainton Moses and Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood.
Dr. Wallace writes:

It was a bright summer afternoon, and everything
happened in the full light of day. After a little conversa-
tion, Monck, who was dressed in the usual clerical black,
appeared to go into a trance ; then stood up a few feet in
front of us, and after a little while pointed to his side,
saying, "Look."

We saw there a faint white patch on his coat on the left
side. This grew brighter, then seemed to flicker and extend
both upwards and downwards, till very gradually it formed
a cloudy pillar extending from his shoulder to his feet and
close to his body.

Dr. Wallace goes on to describe how the cloudy
figure finally assumed the form of a thickly draped
woman, who, after a brief space, appeared to be
absorbed into the body of the medium.

He adds: "The whole process of the formation
of a shrouded figure was seen in full daylight."

Mr. Wedgwood assured him that he had had even
more remarkable manifestations of this kind with

DR. MONCK

Monck, when the medium was in a deep trance, and
in full view.

It is quite impossible after such evidence to doubt
the powers of the medium at that time. Archdeacon
Colley, who had seen similar exhibitions, offered a
prize of a thousand pounds to Mr. J. N. Maskelyne,
the famous conjurer, if he could duplicate the per-
formance. This challenge was accepted by Mr.
Maskelyne, but the evidence showed that the imitation
bore no relation to the original. He attempted to gain
a decision in the courts, but the verdict was against him.

It is interesting to compare the account given by
Russel Wallace and the experience later of a well-
known American, Judge Dailey. This gentleman
wrote : *

Glancing at Dr. Monck's side we observed what looked
like an opalescent mass of compact steam emerging from
just below his heart on the left side. It increased in volume,
rising up and extending downward, the upper portions
taking the form of a child's head, the face being distin-
guished as that of a little child I had lost some twenty years
previously. It only remained in this form for a moment,
and then suddenly disappeared, seeming to be instantly
absorbed into the Doctor's side. This remarkable phe-
nomenon was repeated four or five times, in each instance
the materialization being more distinct than the preceding
one. This was witnessed by all in the room, with gas
burning sufficiently bright for every object in the room to
be plainly visible.

It was a phenomenon seldom to be seen, and has enabled
all who saw it to vouch for, not only the remarkable power
possessed by Dr. Monck as a materializing medium, but

* Banner of Light, Dec. 15, i88t.
3' 1

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

as to the wonderful manner in which a spirit draws out
this position our hands were never moved till I untied the
slates to ascertain the result.

Surely it is vain after such testimony to deny that
Monck had, indeed, great psychic powers.

Apart from materializations Dr. Monck was a re-
markable slate-writing medium. Dr. Russel Wallace
in a letter to the Spectator * says that with Monck at
a private house in Richmond he cleaned two slates,
and after placing a fragment of pencil between them,
tied them together tightly with a strong cord, length-
ways" and crosswise, in a manner that prevented any
movement.

I then laid them flat on the table without losing sight
of them for an instant. Dr. Monck placed the fingers of
both hands on them, while I and a lady sitting opposite
placed our hands on the corners of the slates. From
this position our hands were never moved till I untied the
.slates to ascertain the result.

Monck asked Wallace to name a word to be
written on the slate. He chose the word " God " and
in answer to a request decided that it should be length-
ways on the slate. The sound of writing was heard,
and when the medium's hands were withdrawn, Dr.
Wallace opened the slates and found on the lower one
the word he had asked for and written in the manner
requested.

Dr. Wallace says :

The essential features of this experiment are that I
myself cleaned and tied up the slates; that I kept my hands

* Oct. 7, 1877.
312

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

Photo: Elliott Gr Fry

DR. MONCK

on them all the time ; that they never went out of my sight
for a moment ; and that I named the word to be written,
and the manner of writing it after they were thus secured
and held by me.

Mr. Edward T. Bennett, assistant secretary to the
Society for Psychical Research, adds to this account:

" I was present on this occasion, and certify that
Mr. Wallace's account of what happened is correct."

Another good test is described by Mr. W. P.
Adshead, of Helper, a well-known investigator, who
says of -a stance held in Derby on September 18,
1876:

There were eight persons present, three ladies and
five 'gentlemen. A lady whom Dr. Monck had never
before seen had a slate passed to her by a sitter, which she
examined and found clean. The slate pencil which was on
the table a few minutes before we sat down could not be
found. An investigator suggested that it would be a good
test if a lead pencil were used.

Accordingly a lead pencil was put on the slate, and the
lady held both under the table. The sound of writing
was instantly heard, and in a few seconds a communica-
tion had been written filling one side of the slate. The
writing was done in lead, and was very small and neat, and
alluded to a strictly private matter.

Here were three tests at once, (i) Writing was ob-
tained without the medium (or any other person but the
lady), touching the slate from first to last. (2) It was
written with lead pencil at the spontaneous suggestion of
another stranger. (3) It gave an important test com-
munication regarding a matter that was strictly private.
Dr. Monck did not so much as touch the slate from first
to last.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

Mr. Adshead also speaks of physical phenomena
occurring freely with this medium when his hands
were closely confined in an apparatus called the
" stocks," which did not permit movement of even an
inch in any direction.

In the year 1876 the Slade trial was going on in
London, as already described, and exposures were in
the air. In considering the following rather puzzling
and certainly suspicious case, one has to remember
that when a man who is a public performer, a conjurer
or a mesmerist, can pose as having exposed a medium,
he wins a valuable public advertisement and attracts
to himself all that very numerous section of the com-
munity who desire to see such an exposure. It is only
fair to bear this in mind in endeavouring to hold the
scales fair where there is a conflict of evidence.

In this case the conjurer and mesmerist was one
Lodge, and the occasion was a stance held at Hudders-
field on November 3, 1876. Mr. Lodge suddenly
demanded that the medium be searched. Monck,
whether dreading assault or to save himself exposure,
ran upstairs and locked himself in his room. He
then let himself down from his window and made
for the police office, where he lodged a complaint
as to his treatment. The door of his bedroom had
been forced and his effects searched, with the result
that a pair of stuffed gloves was found. Monck
asserted that these gloves had been made for a lecture
in which he had exposed the difference between con-
juring and mediumship. Still, as a Spiritualist paper
remarked at the time:

DR. MONCK

The phenomena of his mediumship do not rest on his
probity at all. If he were the greatest rogue and the most
accomplished conjurer rolled into one, it would not account
for the manifestations which have been reported of him.

Monck was sentenced to three months' imprison-
ment, and is alleged to have made a confession to
Mr. Lodge.

After his release from prison Monck held a number
of test sittings with Stainton Moses, at which remark-
able phenomena occurred.

Light comments :

Those whose names we have mentioned as testifying
to the genuineness of Dr. Monck's mediumship are well
known to the older Spiritualists as keen and scrupulously
cautious experimenters, and Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's
name carried much weight, as he was known as a man of
science and was brother-in-law of Charles Darwin.

There is an element of doubt about the Hudders-
field case, as the accuser was by no means an impartial
person, but Sir William Barrett's testimony makes it
clear that Monck did sometimes descend to deliberate
and cold-blooded trickery. Sir William writes :

I caught the " Dr." in a gross bit of fraud, a piece
of white muslin on a wire frame with a black thread
attached, being used by the medium to simulate a partially
materialized spirit.*

Such an exposure, coming from so sure a source,
arouses a feeling of disgust which urges one to throw
the whole evidence concerning the man into the
wastepaper basket. One must, however, be patient

* S.P.R. Proceedings, Vol. IV, p. 38 (footnote).
3 r 5

THE HISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

and reasonable in such matters. Monck's earlier
stances, as has been clearly shown, were in good light,
and any such clumsy mechanism was out of the ques-
tion. We must not argue that because a man once
forges, therefore he has never signed an honest cheque
in his life. But we must clearly admit that Monck
was capable of fraud, that he would take the easier
way when things were difficult, and that each of his
manifestations should be carefully checked.

3,6

CHAPTER XIV

COLLECTIVE INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

SEVERAL committees have at different times sat
upon the subject of Spiritualism. Of these the
two most important are that of the Dialectical
Society in 1869-70, and the Seybert Commission in
1884, the first British and the second American. To
these may be added that of the French society, Institut
General Psychologique in 1905-8. In spite of the
intervals between these various investigations, it will
be convenient to treat them in a single chapter as
certain remarks in common apply to each of them.

There are obvious difficulties in the way of col-
lective investigations -difficulties which are so grave
that they are almost insurmountable, When a Crookes
or a Lombroso explores the subject he either sits alone
with the medium, or he has with him others whose
knowledge of psychic conditions and laws may be
helpful in the matter. This is not usually so with
these committees. They fail to understand that they
are themselves part of the experiment, and that it is
possible for them to create such intolerable vibrations,
and to surround themselves with so negative an atmo-
sphere, that these outside forces, which are governed
by very definite laws, are unable to penetrate it. It
is not in vain that the three words " with one accord "
317

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

are interpolated into the account of the apostolic
sitting in the upper room. If a small piece of metal
may upset a whole magnetic installation, so a strong
adverse psychic current may ruin a psychic circle. It
is for this reason, and not on account of any superior
credulity, that practising Spiritualists continually get
such results as are never attained by mere researchers.
This also may be the reason why the one committee
upon which Spiritualists were fairly well represented
was the one which gained the most positive results.
This was the committee which was chosen by the
Dialectical Society of London, a committee which
began its explorations early in 1869 and presented its
report in 1871. If common sense and the ordinary
laws of evidence had been followed in the reception
of this report, the progress of psychic truth would have
been accelerated by fifty years.

Thirty-four gentlemen of standing were appointed
upon this committee, the terms of reference being " to
investigate the phenomena alleged to be spiritual
manifestations." The majority of the members were
certainly in the mood to unmask an imposture, but
they encountered a body of evidence which could not
be disregarded, and they ended by asserting that " the
subject is worthy of more serious attention and careful
investigation than it has hitherto received." This
conclusion so amazed the society which they repre-
sented that they could not get it to publish the find-
ings, so the committee in a spirited way published
them at their own cost, thus giving permanent record
to a most interesting investigation.

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

The members of the committee were drawn from
many varied professions and included a doctor of
divinity, two physicians, two surgeons, two civil
engineers, two fellows of scientific societies, two
barristers, and others of repute. Charles Bradlaugh
the Rationalist was a member. Professor Huxley and
G. H. Lewes, the consort of George Eliot, were
invited to co-operate, but both refused, Huxley
stating in his reply that " supposing the phenomena to
be genuine, they do not interest me " a dictum which
showed that this great and clear-headed man had his
limitations.

The six sub-committees sat forty times under test
conditions, often without the aid of a professional
medium, and with a full sense of responsibility they
agreed that the following points appeared to have
been established :

" i. That sounds of a very varied character, appar-
ently proceeding from articles of furniture,
the floor and walls of the room the vibrations
accompanying which sounds are often dis-
tinctly perceptible to the touch occur, with-
out being produced by muscular action or
mechanical contrivance.

" 2. That movements of heavy bodies take place
without mechanical contrivance of -any
kind or adequate exertion of muscular force
by the persons present, and frequently
without contact or connexion with any
person.

3 J 9

THE HISTORT OP SPIRITUALISM

" 3. That these sounds and movements often occur
at the times and in the manner asked for by
persons present, and, by means of a simple
code of signals, answer questions and spell out
coherent communications.

" 4. That the answers and communications thus
obtained are, for the most part, of a common-
place character ; but facts are sometimes cor-
rectly given which are only known to one of
the persons present.

" 5. That the circumstances under which the pheno-
mena occur are variable, the most prominent'
fact being that the presence of certain persons
seems necessary to their occurrence, and that
of others generally adverse ; but this difference
does not appear to depend upon any belief or
disbelief concerning the phenomena.

" 6. That, nevertheless, the occurrence of the phe-
nomena is not ensured by the presence or
absence of such persons respectively."

The report briefly summarizes as follows the oral
and written evidence received, which not only testifies
to phenomena of the same nature as those witnessed
by the sub-committees, but to others of a more varied
and^ extraordinary character:

" i. Thirteen witnesses state that they have seen
heavy bodies in some instances men rise
slowly in the air and remain there for some time
without visible or tangible support.
320

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

" 2. Fourteen witnesses testify to having seen hands
or figures, not appertaining to any human
being, but lifelike in appearance and mobility,
which they have sometimes touched or even
grasped, and which they are therefore con-
vinced were not the result of imposture or
illusion.

" 3. Five witnesses state that they have been touched
by some invisible agency on various parts of the
body, and often where requested, when the
hands of all present were visible.

" 4. Thirteen witnesses declare that they have heard
musical pieces well played upon instruments .
not manipulated by any ascertainable agency.

" 5. Five witnesses state that they have seen red-hot
coals applied to the hands or heads of several
persons without producing pain or scorching,
and three witnesses state that they have had the
same experiment made upon themselves with
the like immunity.

" 6. Eight witnesses state that they have received pre-
cise information through rappings, writings,
and in other ways, the accuracy of which was
unknown at the time to themselves or to any
persons present, and which on subsequent
inquiry was found to be correct.

" 7. One witness declares that he has received a
precise and detailed statement which, never-
theless, proved to be entirely erroneous.

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

" 8. Three witnesses state that they have been present
when drawings, both in pencil and colours,
were produced in so short a time, and under
such conditions as to render human agency
impossible.

" 9. Six witnesses declare that they have received in-
formation of future events, and that in some
cases the hour and minute of their occurrence
have been accurately foretold, days and even
weeks before."

In addition to the above, evidence was given of
trance-speaking, of healing, of automatic writing, of
the introduction of flowers and fruits into closed
rooms, of voices in the air, of visions in crystals
and glasses, and of the elongation of the human
body.

The report closes with the following observations:

In presenting their report, your Committee, taking
into consideration the high character and great intelligence
of many of the witnesses to the more extraordinary facts,
the extent to which their testimony is supported by the
reports of the sub-committees, and the absence of any proof
of imposture or delusion as regards a large portion of the
phenomena ; and further, having regard to the exceptional
character of the phenomena, the large number of persons
in every grade of society and over the whole civilized world
who are more or less influenced by a belief in their super-
natural origin, and to the fact that no philosophical explana-
tion of them has yet been arrived at, deem it incumbent
upon them to state their conviction that the subject is
worthy of more serious attention and careful investigation
than it has hitherto received.
322

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

Among those who gave evidence, or read papers
before the committee were: Dr. Alfred Russel Wal-
lace, Mrs. Emma Hardinge, Mr, H. D. Jencken, Mr.
Benjamin Coleman, Mr. Cromwell F. Varley, Mr.
D. D. Home, and the Master of Lindsay. Corre-
spondence was received from Lord Lytton, Mr.
Robert Chambers, Dr. Garth Wilkinson, Mr. William
Howitt, M. Camille Flammarion, and others.

The committee was successful in procuring the
evidence of believers in the phenomena, but almost
wholly failed, as stated in its report, to obtain
evidence from those who attributed them to fraud
or delusion.

In the records of the evidence of over fifty wit-
nesses, there is voluminous testimony to the existence
of the facts from men and women of good standing.
One witness* considered that the most remarkable
phenomenon brought to light by the labours of the
committee was the extraordinary number of eminent
men who were shown to be firm believers in the
Spiritual hypothesis. And another f declared that
whatever agencies might be employed in these mani-
festations, they were not to be explained by referring
them to imposture on the one side or hallucination on
the other.

An interesting sidelight on the growth of the move-
ment is obtained from Mrs. Emma Hardinge's state-
ment that at that time (1869) she knew only two
professional mediums in London, though she was
acquainted with several non-professional ones. As she

* Grattan Geary. t E. L. Blanchard.

383

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

herself was a medium she was probably correct in
what she said. Mr. Cromwell Varley averred that
there were probably not more than a hundred known
mediums in the whole kingdom, and he added that
very few of those were well developed. We have here
conclusive testimony to the great work accomplished
in England by D. D. Home, for the bulk of the con-
verts were due to his mediumship. Another medium
who played an important part was Mrs. Marshall.
Many witnesses spoke of evidential sittings they had
attended at her house. Mr. William Howitt, the well-
known author, was of opinion that Spiritualism had
then received the assent of about twenty millions of
people in all countries after personal examination.

What may be called the evidence for the opposi-
tion was not at all formidable. Lord Lytton said that
in his experience the phenomena were traceable to
material influences of whose nature we were ignorant,
Dr. Carpenter brought out his pet hobby of " uncon-
scious cerebration." Dr. Kidd thought that the
majority were evidently subjective phenomena, and
three witnesses, while convinced of the genuineness of
the occurrences, ascribed them to Satanic agency.
These objections were well answered by Mr. Thomas
Shorter, author of " Confessions of a Truth Seeker,"
and secretary of the Working Men's College, in an
admirable review of the report in The Spiritual
Magazine*

It is worthy of note that on the publication of this
important and well-considered report it was ridiculed
* 1872, pp. 3-15.
324

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

by a large part of the London Press. An honourable
exception was the Spectator.

The Times reviewer considered it " nothing more
than a farrago of impotent conclusions, garnished by
a mass of the most monstrous rubbish it has ever been
our misfortune to sit in judgment upon."

The Morning Post said: " The report which has
been published is entirely worthless."

The Saturday Review hoped that report would
involuntarily lead " to discrediting a little further one
of the most unequivocally degrading superstitions that
have ever found currency among reasonable beings."

The Standard made a sound criticism that de-
serves to be remembered. Objecting to the remark
of those who do not believe in Spiritualism, yet say
that there may be " something in it," the newspaper
sagely observes: " If there is anything whatever in it
-beyond imposture and imbecility, there is the whole
of another world in it."

The Daily News regarded the report as "an impor-
tant contribution to the literature of a subject which,
some day or other, by the very number of its followers,
will demand more extended investigation."

The Spectator, after describing the book as an
extremely curious one, added: " Few, however, could
read the mass of evidence collected in this volume,
showing the firm faith in the reality of the alleged
spiritual phenomena possessed by a number of in-
dividuals of honourable and upright character, with-
out also agreeing with Mr. Jeffrey's opinion, that the
remarkable phenomena witnessed, some of which had

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

not been traced to imposture or delusion, and the
gathered testimony of respectable witnesses, 'justify
the recommendation of the subject to further cautious
investigation.' "

These are but brief extracts from longer notices
in a few of the London newspapers there were many
others and, bad as they are, they none the less
indicate a change of attitude on the part of the Press,
which had been in the habit of ignoring the subject
altogether.

It must be remembered that the report concerned
itself only with the phenomenal aspect of Spiritualism,
and this, in the opinion of leading Spiritualists, is
decidedly the less important side. Only in the report
of one sub-committee is it recorded that the general
gist of the messages was that physical death was a
trivial matter in retrospect, but that for the spirit it
was a rebirth into new experiences of existence, that
spirit life was in every respect human ; that friendly
intercourse was as common and pleasurable as in life ;
that although spirits took great interest in worldly
affairs, they had no wish to return to their former state
of existence ; that communication with earth friends
was pleasurable and desired by spirits, being intended
as a proof to the former of the continuance of life in
spite of bodily dissolution, and that spirits claimed no
certain prophetic power. These were the main heads
of the information received.

It will be generally recognized in the future that,
in their day and generation, the Dialectical Society's
Committee did excellent work. The great majority
326

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

of the members were opposed to the psychic claims,
but in the face of evidence, with a few exceptions, such
as Dr. Edmunds, they yielded to the testimony of their
own senses. There were a few examples of intolerance
such as Huxley's unhappy dictum, and Charles Brad-
laugh's declaration that he would not even examine
certain things because they were in the region of the
impossible, but on the whole the team work of the
sub-committees was excellent.

There appears in the report of the Dialectical
Society's Committee a long article by Dr. Edmunds,
an opponent to Spiritualism, and to the findings of
his colleagues. It is worth reading as typical of a
certain class of mind. The worthy doctor, while
imagining himself to be impartial, is really so abso-
lutely prejudiced that the conceivable possibility of
the phenomena being supernormal never is allowed to
enter into his mind. When he sees one with his own
eyes his only question is, " How was the trick done ? "
If he cannot answer the question he does not consider
this to be in favour of some other explanation, but
simply records that he cannot discover the trick.
Thus his evidence, which is perfectly honest as to
fact, records that a number of fresh flowers and fruits,
still wet, fell upon the table a phenomenon of
apports which was shown many times by Mrs. Guppy.
The doctor's only comment is that they must have been
taken from the sideboard, although one would have
imagined that a large basket of fruit upon the side-
board would have attracted attention, and he does not
venture to say that he saw such an object. Again he
327

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM'

was shut up with the Davenports in their cabinet and
admits that he could make nothing of it, but, of course,
it must be a conjuring trick. Then when he finds that
mediums who perceive that his mental attitude is
hopeless refuse to sit with him again, he sets that down
also as an evidence of their guilt. There is a certain
type of scientific mind which is quite astute within
its own subject and, outside it, is the most foolish and
illogical thing upon earth.

It was the misfortune of the Seybert Commission,
which we will now discuss, that it was entirely
composed of such people, with the exception of one
Spiritualist, a Mr. Hazard, who was co-opted by
them and who had little chance of influencing their
general atmosphere of obstruction. The circum-
stances in which the Commission was appointed were
these. A certain Henry Seybert, a citizen of Phila-
delphia, had left the sum of sixty thousand dollars
for the purpose of founding a Chair of Philosophy
at the University of Pennsylvania with the condition
that the said University should appoint a commis-
sion to " make a thorough and impartial investiga-
tion of all systems of morals, religion, or philosophy
which assume to represent the truth, and particularly
of modern Spiritualism." The personnel of the body
chosen is immaterial save that all were connected with
the University, with Dr. Pepper, the Provost of the
University as nominal chairman, Dr. Furness as acting
chairman, and Professor Fullerton as secretary. In
spite of the fact that the duty of the Commission was to
3*8

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

" make a thorough and impartial investigation " of
modern Spiritualism, the preliminary report coolly
states :

The Commission is composed of men whose days
are already filled with duties which cannot be laid aside,
and who are able, therefore, to devote but a small portion
of their time to these investigations.

The fact that the members were satisfied to start
with this handicap shows how little they understood
the nature of the work before them. Their failure,
in the circumstances, was inevitable. The proceed-
ings began in March, 1884, an< ^ a "preliminary"
report, so called, was issued in 1887. This report was,
as it proved, the final one, for though it was reissued
in 1920 there was no addition save a colourless preface
of three paragraphs by a descendant of the former
chairman. The gist of this report is that fraud on the
one side and credulity on the other make up the whole
of Spiritualism, and that there was really nothing
serious on which the committee could report. The
whole long document is well worth reading by any
student of psychic matters. The impression left upon
the mind is that the various members of the Com-
mission were in their own limited way honestly
endeavouring to get at the facts, but that their minds,
like that of Dr. Edmunds, were so formed that when,
in spite of their repellent and impossible attitude, some
psychic happening did manage to break through their
barriers, they would not for an instant consider the
possibility that it was genuine, but simply passed it by
as if it did not exist. Thus with Mrs. Fox-Kane they
329

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

did get well-marked raps, and are content with the
thousand-times disproved supposition that they came
from inside her own body, and they pass without com-
ment the fact that they received from her long mes-
sages, written swiftly in script, which could only be
read when held to the looking-glass, as it was from
right to left. This swiftly-written script contained an
abstruse Latin sentence which would appear to be
much above the capacity of the medium. All of this
was unexplained and ignored.

Again, in reporting upon Mrs. Lord the Com-
mission got the Direct Voice, and also phosphorescent
lights after the medium had been searched. We are
informed that the medium kept up an " almost con-
tinuous clapping of hands," and yet people at a dis-
tance from her seem to have been touched. The spirit
in which the inquiry is approached may be judged
from the remark of the acting chairman to W. M.
Keeler, who was said to be a spirit photographer, that
he " would not be satisfied with less than a cherub on
my head, one on each shoulder, and a full-blown angel
on my breast." A Spiritualist would be surprised
indeed if an inquirer in so frivolous a mood should be
favoured with results. All through runs the fallacy
that the medium is producing something as a conjurer
does. Never for a moment do they seem to realize
that the favour and assent of invisible operators may
be essential operators who may stoop to the humble-
minded and shrink away from, or even make game of,
the self-sufficient scoffer.

While there were some results which may have
330

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

been genuine, but which are brushed aside by the
report, there were some episodes which must be painful
to the Spiritualist, but which none the less must be
faced. The Commission exposed obvious fraud in
the case of the slate medium, Mrs. Patterson, and it is
impossible to deny that the case against Slade is
a substantial one. The latter days of this medium
were admittedly under a cloud, and the powers
which had once been so conspicuous may have
been replaced by trickery. Dr. Furness goes the
length of asserting that such trickery was actually
admitted, but the anecdote as given in the report
rather suggests chaff upon the part of the medium.
That Dr. Slade should jovially beckon the doctor in
from his open window, and should at once in reply to
a facetious remark admit that his own whole life had
been a swindle, is more than one can easily believe.

There are some aspects in which the Commission
or some members of it seem to have been disingenu-
ous. Thus, they state at the beginning that they will
rest their report upon their own labours and disregard
the mass of material already available. In spite of
this, they introduce a long and adverse report from
their secretary upon the Zollner evidence in favour of
Slade. This report is quite incorrect in itself, as is
shown in the account of Zollner given in the
chapter treating of Slade's experiences in Leipzig. It
carefully suppresses the fact that the chief conjurer in
Germany, after a considerable investigation, gave a
certificate that Slade's phenomena were not trickery.
On the other hand, when the testimony of a conjurer
331

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

is against a spiritual explanation, as in the comments
of Kellar, it is given in full, with no knowledge,
apparently, that in the case of another medium,
Eglinton, this same Kellar had declared the results to
be beyond his art.

At the opening of the report the Commission says:
" We deemed ourselves fortunate at the outset in
having as a counsellor the late Mr. Thomas R. Hazard,
a personal friend of Mr. Seybert, and widely known
throughout the land as an uncompromising Spiritual-
ist." Mr. Hazard evidently knew the importance of
ensuring the right conditions and the right type of
sitters for such an experimental investigation. Des-
cribing an interview he had with Mr. Seybert a few
days before the latter's death, when he agreed to act
as his representative, Mr. Hazard says he did so only
" with the full and distinct understanding that I
should be permitted to prescribe the methods to be
pursued in the investigation, designate the mediums
to be consulted, and reject the attendance of any
person or persons whose presence I deemed might
conflict with the harmony and good order of the spirit
circles." But this representative of Mr. Seybert
seems to have been quietly ignored by the University.
After the Commission had been sitting for some time,
Mr. Hazard was dissatisfied with some of its members
and their methods. We find him writing as follows
in the Philadelphia North American* presumably
after vainly approaching the University authorities :

Without aiming to detract in the slightest degree from

* May 18, 1885.
33*

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

the unblemished moral character that attaches to each and
every individual of the Faculty, including the Commission,
in public esteem, nor to the high social and literary standing
they occupy in society, I must say that through some strange
infatuation, obliquity of judgment, or perversity of intellect,
the Trustees of the University have placed on the Com-
mission for the investigation of modern Spiritualism, a
majority of its members whose education, habit of thought,
and prejudices so singularly disqualify them from making
a thorough and impartial investigation of the subject which
the Trustees of the University are obligated both by con-
tract and in honour to do, that had the object in view been
to belittle and bring into discredit, hatred and general
contempt the cause that I know the late Henry Seybert
held nearest his heart and loved more than all else in the
world beside, the Trustees could scarcely have selected
more suitable instruments for the object intended from all
the denizens of Philadelphia than are the gentlemen who
constitute a majority of the Seybert Commission. And
this I repeat, not from any causes that affect their moral,
social or literary standing in society, but simply because
of their prejudices against the cause of Spiritualism.

He further advised the Trustees to remove from
the Commission Messrs. Fullerton, Thompson, and
Koenig.

Mr. Hazard quoted Professor Fullerton as saying
in a lecture before the Harvard University Club on
March 3, 1885:

It is possible that the way mediums tell a person's
history is by the process of thought-transference, for every
person who is thus told of these things goes to a medium
thinking of the same points about which the medium talks.
. . . When a man has a cold he hears a buzzing noise in
333

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

his ears, and an insane person constantly hears sounds
which never occur. Perhaps, then, disease of mind or ear,
or some strong emotion, may be the cause of a large number
of spiritual phenomena.

These words were spoken after the professor had
served on the Commission for more than twelve
months.

Mr. Hazard also quotes Dr. George A. Koenig's
views, published in the Philadelphia Press, about a
year after his appointment on the Commission :

I must frankly admit that I am prepared to deny the
truth of Spiritualism as it is now popularly understood.
It is my belief that all of the so-called mediums are humbugs
without exception. I have never seen Slade perform any
of his tricks, but, from the published descriptions, I have
set him down as an impostor, the cleverest one of the lot.
I do not think the Commission view with much favour
the examination of so-called spirit mediums. The wisest
men are apt to be deceived. One man in an hour can invent
more tricks than a wise man can solve in a year.

Mr. Hazard learned from what he considered
to be a reliable source, that Professor Robert E.
Thompson was responsible for this view which
appeared in Penn's Monthly of February, 1880.

Even if Spiritualism be all that its champions claim
for it, it has no importance for anyone who holds a Christian
faith. . . . The consideration and discussion of the sub-
ject is tampering with notions and condescending to dis-
cussions with which no Christian believer has any business.

We have in these expressions of opinion a means of
judging how unsuited these members of the Com-

334

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

mission were for making what Mr. Seybert asked for
" a thorough and impartial " investigation of the
subject.

An American Spiritualist periodical, the Banner
of Light, commenting on Mr. Hazard's communi-
cation, wrote :

So far as we have information, no notice was taken
of Mr. Hazard's appeal certainly no action was had,
for the members above quoted remain on the Commission
to this day, and their names are appended to this preliminary
report. Professor Fullerton, in fact, was and now is the
secretary ; one hundred and twenty of the one hundred and
fifty pages of the volume before us are written by him, and
exhibit that excessive lack of spiritual perception and know-
ledge of occult, and we might also say natural laws, which
led him to inform an audience of Harvard students that
" when a man has a cold he hears a buzzing noise in his
ears " ; that " an insane person constantly hears sounds
which never occur," and suggest to them that spiritual
phenomena may proceed from such causes.

The Banner of Light continues :

We consider that the Seybert Commission's failure to
follow the counsel of Mr. Hazard, as it was plainly their
duty to do, is the key to the entire failure of all their sub-
sequent efforts. The paucity of phenomenal results, in
any degree approaching what might be looked for, even by
a sceptic, which this book records, is certainly remarkable.
It is a report of what was not done, rather than that of what
was. In the memoranda of proceedings at each session,
as given by Professor Fullerton, there is plainly seen a
studied effort to give prominence to everything that a
superficial mind might deem proof of trickery on the part
of the medium, and to conceal all that might be evidence
of the truth of his claims. ... It is mentioned that when
335

THE BISTORT OF SPIRITUALISM

certain members of the Commission were present all phe-
nomena ceased. This substantiates the correctness of
Mr. Hazard's position ; and there is no one who has had
an experience with mediums, sufficient to render his opinion
of any value, who will not endorse it. The spirits knew
what elements they had to deal with ; they endeavoured
to eliminate those that rendered their experiments nuga-
tory ; they failed to do this through the ignorance, wilful-
ness or prejudice of the Commission, and the experiments
failed ; so the Commission, very " wise in its own conceit,"
decided that all was fraud.

Light,* in its notice of the report, says what needs
saying as much now as in 1887 :

We notice with some pleasure, though without any
marked expectation of what may result from the pursuance
of bad methods of investigation, that the Commission pro-
poses to continue its quest " with minds as sincerely and
honestly open as heretofore to conviction." Since this is
so, we presume to offer a few words of advice founded
upon large experience. The investigation of these obscure
phenomena is beset with difficulty, and any instructions
that can be given are derived from a knowledge which is
to a great extent empirical. But we know that prolonged
and patient experiment with a properly constituted circle
is a sine qua non. We know that all does not depend on
the medium, but that a circle must be formed and varied
from time to time experimentally, until the proper con-
stituent elements are secured. What these elements may
be we cannot tell the Seybert Commission. They must
discover that for themselves. Let them make a study in
the literature of Spiritualism of the varied characteristics
of mediumship before they proceed to personal experiment.
And when they have done this, and perhaps when they have

* 1887, p. 391.

336

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

realized how easy it is so to conduct an examination of this
nature as to arrive at negative results, they will be in a
better position to devote intelligent and patient care to a
study which can be profitably conducted in no other way.

There is no doubt that the report of the Seybert
Commission set back for the time the cause of psychic
truth. Yet the real harm fell upon the learned insti-
tution which these gentlemen represented. In these
days when ectoplasm, the physical basis of psychic
phenomena, has been established beyond a shadow of
doubt to all who examine the evidence, it is too late
to pretend that there is nothing to be examined.
There is now hardly a capital which has not its Psychic
Research Society a final comment upon the infer-
ence of the Commission that there was no field for
research. If the Seybert Commission had had the
effect of Pennsylvania University heading this move-
ment, and living up to the great tradition of Pro-
fessor Hare, how proud would her final position have
been ! As Newton associated Cambridge with the
law of gravitation, so Pennsylvania might have been
linked to a far more important advance of human
knowledge. It was left to several European centres
of learning to share the honour among them.

The remaining collective investigation is of less
importance, since it deals only with a particular
medium. This was conducted by the Institut Ge'ne'ral
Psychologique in Paris. It consisted of three series
of sittings with the famous Eusapia Palladino in the
years 1905, 1906, and 1907, the total number of

w 337

THE HISTORY OP SPIRITUALISM

stances being forty-three. No complete list of the
sitters is available, nor was there any proper collective
report, the only record being a very imperfect and
inconclusive one from the secretary, M. Courtier. The
investigators included some very distinguished per-
sons, including Charles Richet, Monsieur and Madame
Curie, Messrs. Bergson, Perrin, Professor d'Arsonal
of the College de France, who was president of the
society, Count de Gramont, Professor Charpentier,
and Principal Debierne of the Sorbonne. The actual
result could not have been disastrous to the medium,
since Professor Richet has recorded his endorsement
of the reality of her psychic powers, but the strange
superficial tricks of Eusapia are recorded in the sub-
sequent account of her career, and we can well im-
agine the disconcerting effect which they would have
upon those to whom such things were new.

There is included in the report a sort of conversa-
tion among the sitters in which they talk the matter
over, most of them being in a very nebulous and
non-committal frame of mind. It cannot be claimed
that any new light was shed upon the medium,
or any new argument provided either for the sceptic
or for the believer. Dr. Geley, however, who has
probably gone as deeply as anyone else into psychic
science, claims that " les experiences " he does
not say the report constitute a valuable contri-
bution to the subject.* He bases this upon the fact
that the results chronicled do often strikingly confirm
those obtained in his own Institut Me"tapsychique

* " L'Ectoplasmie et la Clairvoyance," 1924, p. 402.

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

working with Kluski, Guzik, and other mediums.
The differences, he says, are in details and never in
essentials. The control of the hands was the same in
either case, both the hands being always held. This
was easier in the case of the later mediums, especially
with Kluski in trance, while Eusapia was usually
a very restless individual. There seems to be a half-
way condition which was characteristic of Eusapia,
and which has been observed by the author in the
case of Frau Silbert, Evan Powell, and other mediums,
where the person seems normal, and yet is pecu-
liarly susceptible to suggestion or other mental im-
pressions. A suspicion of fraud may very easily
be aroused in this condition, for the general desire on
the part of the audience that something should occur
reacts with great force upon the unreasoning mind of
the medium. An amateur who had some psychic
power has assured the author that it needs consider-
able inhibition to keep such impulses in check and to
await the real power from outside. In this report we
read: "The two hands, feet, and knees of Eusapia
being controlled, the table is raised suddenly, all four
feet leaving the ground. Eusapia closes her fists and
holds them towards the table, which is then completely
raised from the floor five times in succession, five raps
being also given. It is again completely raised whilst
each of Eusapia's hands is on the head of a sitter.
It is raised to a height of one foot from the floor
and suspended in the air for seven seconds, while
Eusapia kept her hand on the table, and a lighted
candle was placed under the table," and so on, with
339

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

even more conclusive tests with table and other
phenomena.

The timidity of the report was satirized by the
great French Spiritualist, Gabriel Delanne. He

says:

The reporter keeps saying " it seems " and " it appears,"
like a man who is not sure of what he is relating. Those
who held forty-three seances, with good eyes and apparatus
for verification, ought to have a settled opinion or, at
least, to be able to say, if they regard a certain pheno-
menon as fraudulent, that at a given stance they had seen
the medium in the act of tricking. But there is nothing of
the sort. The reader is left in uncertainty a vague sus-
picion hovers over everything, though not supported on any
serious grounds.

Commenting on this, Light says : *

Delanne shows by extracts from the Report itself that
some of the experiments succeeded even when the fullest
test precautions were taken, such as using lamp-black to dis-
cover whether Eusapia really touched the objects moved.
Yet the Report deliberately discounts these direct and posi-
tive observations by instancing cases occurring at other times
and places in which Eusapia was said or believed to have
unduly influenced the phenomena.

The Courtier Report will prove more and more plainly
to be what we have already called it, a " monument of
ineptitude," and the reality of Eusapia's phenomena cannot
be seriously called in question by the meaningless phrases
with which it is liberally garnished.

What may be called a collective investigation of
a medium, Mrs. Crandon, the wife of a doctor in
* 1909, p. 35 6.
340

INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM

Boston, was undertaken in the years 1923 to 1925 by
a committee chosen by the Scientific American and
afterwards by a small committee of Harvard men with
Dr. Shapley, the astronomer, at their head. The con-
troversy over these inquiries is still raging, and the
matter has been referred to in the chapter which deals
with great modern mediums. It may briefly be
stated that of the Scientific American inquirers the
secretary, Mr. Malcolm Bird, and Dr. Hereward
Carrington announced their complete conversion.
The others gave no clear decision which involved
the humiliating admission that after numerous sittings
under their own conditions and in the presence of con-
stant phenomena, they could not tell whether they
were being cheated or not. The defect of the com-
mittee was that no experienced Spiritualist who was
familiar with psychic conditions was upon it. Dr.
Prince was very deaf, while Dr. McDougall was in a
position where his whole academic career would
obviously be endangered by the acceptance of an
unpopular explanation. The same remark applies to
Dr. Shapley's committee, which was all composed of
budding scientists. Without imputing conscious
mental dishonesty, there is a subconscious drag to-
wards the course of safety. Reading the report of
these gentlemen with their signed acquiescence at each
sitting with the result, and their final verdict of fraud,
one cannot discover any normal way in which they
have reached their conclusions. On the other hand,
the endorsements of the mediumship by folk who
had no personal reasons for extreme caution were

THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM

frequent and enthusiastic. Dr. Mark Richardson of
Boston reported that he had sat more than 300 times,
and had no doubt at all about the results.

The author has seen numerous photographs of
the ectoplasmic flow from " Margery," and has no
hesitation, on comparing it with similar photographs
taken in Europe, in saying that it is unquestionably
genuine, and that the future will justify the medium
as against her unreasonable critics.

PBIHTED y CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAVVAGE, LOHDOW, E.C.4